#the queer loneliness (and the loneliness of being a lesbian) is one of the harder things ive ever had to face

[ac-lesbians]

The loneliness is real homie 😔🤘

But I have two stories for you.

The first is a story of my uncle in 1960s rural Oklahoma. He was a gay boy who liked to play with his sexuality with the only other two gays he knew of in the whole county. They felt so strong together and they felt like they belonged.

One day they were followed by a few straight classmates who hated them, called them faggots and cornered them behind a bar. One of the guys picked up a tire iron and was preparing to beat my uncle and his friends, likely to death.

When the back door to the bar opened up and three biker dykes walked out. One of them didn't say a word, and instead lifted an entire discarded hub off the ground and slammed it into the hood of the guys car. She yelled at them in a heavy southern accent to get and they were too terrified and outnumbered to do anything but drive away.

My uncle told me that without those biker dykes, he likely would never have lived to tell the tale. I wish I could describe to you my uncle as he told me this story. He'd just told me the stories of his friends during the AIDS crisis. But he ended with this story, he's 76 years old and he'd lived his whole life gay in the countryside. And his eyes kind of brightened and the admiration in his voice as he talked about those biker dykes told me everything I needed to know about queer history. That it's made up of individuals like them.

The second is less scary and happened to me yesterday.

I work at a gym that includes kids classes. I have a big rainbow tattoo on my arm but that day i was wearing long sleeves. We offer free trials and so when two kids I didn't recognize ran through, I stopped them and asked them their names. I recognized their names from a series of emails I had with their mom Amy. They ran off to class and their mom came in trailing behind them.

I said hi and introduced myself as the manager and said "you must be amy" and she said "no" and she hesitated and stuttered for a moment before saying she was "the other parent"

I smiled and started a conversation, mentioned that I'd been speaking with Amy and asked for the other woman's name. We had some small talk and I gave her my secret caffeine survival kit for opening shifts. At one point I'd rolled up my sleeves and she saw my tattoo and I watched the stress roll from her shoulders and eventually we parted ways and she went to watch her kids take class.

I tell you these stories because 1. You may not see them, and they may not see you, but queer people watch out for each other. You may feel alone but there will always be queer people and there will always be someone to stand at your side. 2. Not too long from now, someone will come along who needs someone like you. You'll find yourself becoming the role model you need now for someone else. It doesn't make today easier, but it will make tomorrow brighter.

Until tomorrow tho, just know that the community doesn't just come out during pride. We're here always, and one day you'll find your people.

struggling rn cause i wish i knew other lesbians irl to talk to or have as a rolemodel.

[doublejango]

I am already seeing virtue signaling posts from people saying "I don't care what you believe or how you voted..."

That's great. I care. I care a lot. The outcome of this election effects me, but so much more than me. I care. It matters. And if it really doesn't matter to you? Good for you. If you are privileged enough, safe enough, and entitled enough to truly not care about how the election will impact other people... I can't even imagine what that must be like. Nice, I guess?

I spent most of last night and this morning crying.

I'm done with tears now, and have moved on to rage.

And you know what? I promise not to let it burn out. Because smiles and positivity may work for many of us, and I'm not going to lose mine either, I promise not to lose my queer joy--they can rip it from my cold dead hands, not to get too damn dramatic here--but I'm also not in the mood to start forgiving and smiling and welcoming Nazis into the bar.

So. I will hold onto anger. I've been tolerant and accepting long enough in life... and have learned something important about what causes the worst harm.

I have been gay bashed before. Violently. Blood. Broken bones. Lost teeth. And you know what the worst part of the recovery of all of that was, the part that did the most psychological and emotional damage? It wasn't the actual bashing itself. It wasn't even the memory of exactly what it felt like to have something swung full force into my face with extremely violent intent. It was the denial from my "friends" and family afterwards. The people who wanted to deny that it was a hate crime. The people who wanted me to shrug it off and not be upset about it. The people who loved to say oh well it wasn't that bad. You know what helped? Letting myself feel fury. Letting myself name the attack as hate. "It wasn't that bad," though, they said, asif it was their judgment to make--endless hours of dental procedures, pain, wounds that never fully healed, the trauma, the lost work, the new experience of vomiting blood with broken jaws and knocked out teeth. Because it wasn't that bad. And there was so much self-reproach, because I could have avoided it. I wasn't the intended target. He was swinging for a lesbian with me. When the attacker burst out of hiding he was swinging for the side of her head, her temple. I jumped in between them. Didn't think. It was an impulse. Protect the people you care about. So I took it to the face. And I grabbed him. I threw him, and fell doing it. I remember being on my knees in the mud. Seeing my teeth in the mud. Seeing my blood just. Everywhere. And knowing I needed to push back to my feet immediately because it might not be over.

We were lucky. It was over. He hadn't expected anyone to fight back. He ran.

But the people who claimed to love me didn't want to deal with the idea that it was a hate crime. They wanted it to be random and meaningless. That made their world a little safer, I guess. And their denial made my world colder. And my recovery lonelier. Harder. They put me down for "bringing it on myself." As if it would have been more virtuous to let this woman take that attack to her temple, as if I would have been more valid for standing by and watching it happen.

There are so many more stories I can tell you, but the lesson is almost invariably the same: the ugliest hurt is often the one caused by the people who just turn away when you identify what happened to you. The hurts that cut the deepest and last the longest often come from the people we thought we could trust, because they want you to just get over it, don't talk about it, admit it could have been worse, don't call it That.

The betrayal from people who are supposed to have your back? That deepens wounds, deepens trauma.

I won't be that person. I won't tell you to smile and turn the other cheek when someone shows you they hate you. Do whatever you need to do to survive--physically, emotionally, psychologically. Just don't give up, and don't let the cowards force you into feeling shame for not giving up and letting the world break you.

Never be ashamed to refuse to break.

Never let someone shame you for choosing strength. For drawing your line in the sand.

I wanted the "exciting" times of my life to be behind me. But they're not--so be it. I'm not going to tone myself down to be safer. I don't care about my own safety anymore. Any self-preservation drive broke a long time ago when it comes to homophobia. I promise to always be ready to fight. To be a queer menace to "polite" society. I promise to be out and loud and gay, to be a shield however I can for those who can't be out, who can't fight back, who can't even speak up because it wouldn't be safe for them to do so. They are valid, too. And I love them. And I will have their fucking backs. I promise to, in my real off-the-internet life, be someone who will always jump in and speak up if I see queer people being harassed or shamed--especially if they're young. I am older. I will fight for my baby gays. I will love them.

And I will never, never put anyone down for refusing to welcome Nazis into the bar. We don't look the other way and quietly tolerate them. Not here.

I may not be around much for the next few days. I need to handle my own shit. My own fury. My own grief. Because right now, there is so much grief.

But I won't be going anywhere.

I will fight to stay.

Whatever it takes.

I'm not giving up.

If I end up on my knees in the mud again, staring at my own blood and teeth, metaphorically or in fucking reality, so be it. I will get back up. And I will keep getting back up. I won't let go of the anger. The spite. And I definitely won't let go of my love for every queer person, the ones I know and the ones I don't, because that love is what will give me strength to get through this. Whatever comes next.

I may not have much sense of self-preservation. But goddamn, I will fight for you.

[biblicalhorror]

Okayyyyy yeah also let's talk about Tammy. I didn't know how I felt about her for awhile because she did very much feel like the Disposable Black Girlfriend, but I'm seeing people saying she's an "abuser" or God forbid "just as bad as Kevin" and that's just. Not at all true.

Yes, Tammy is controlling. She doesn't seem to really like Patty for who she is, and kind of seems to want to change her into someone else instead. HOWEVER, I think we need to look at the whole character to understand WHY she's like that. I don't think she's controlling Patty for personal gain or for the sake of manipulating her. I think she's lonely and desperate for companionship, which leads to her ignoring/pushing past the obvious incompatibility in her relationship with Patty.

Here's what we know about Tammy:

1. She seems to be the only black person in the Worcester social circle. She also mentions frequently how she's surrounded entirely by white men at work.

2. She is also the only openly lgbt person in the area, other than Patty, who is still not exactly out and proud.

3. She describes her entire job as "making excuses for" and "cleaning up after" the men at her job, particularly her partner (whose name I am unfortunately forgetting, does anyone remember?), who even had her plant evidence for him on at least one occasion.

4. Despite being very competent and good at her job, the white men around her keep failing upwards (she mentions a few times that people beneath her keep getting promoted) while she remains stagnant in her career. There doesn't seem to be any explanation for this other than the fact that she is a black lesbian in an extremely white, conservative community.

Basically, Tammy seems like someone who has been taught (like many black women) that she will have to work much harder than everyone else to get ahead in any capacity. She is also likely very, very lonely. She doesn't seem to have any friends outside of work, which isn't surprising given the above. It seems like she doesn't exactly have a ton of prospects, dating-wise, other than Patty. In my opinion, it's really no wonder that she clung to Patty so desperately and immediately and tried to forcibly mold her into someone who could be compatible. She's tough, smart, organized, direct, manipulative, no-nonsense and controlling because, well, she had to be. And she ends up trying to "rein in" Patty because, in her mind, what's the other option? She ends up alone, surrounded by men who force her to cover for their antics and don't care if she lives or dies.

I'm not saying her behavior is healthy. But it comes from an entirely different place than Kevin's abuse, or Chuck's, or even Neil's. And it's also not uncommon. In real life, I know many queer women (specifically small-town lesbians) who end up in relationship dynamics just like that over and over again because they start dating someone who doesn't quite fit, and they compensate for it by trying to force a connection instead of accepting loneliness and isolation. I have a lot of sympathy for Tammy. And I wish the show had taken more care to establish the abuse she faced from her coworkers off-camera.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Top 5 comics that aren't bat related?

GOD okay I'm admittedly so so behind on my non-Bat comic reading because trying to read Everything Published In A 15 Year Period is fucking TIME CONSUMING, but! but but but!!! I have some fun ones!! also as always these are not in ANY particular order!

Thirsty Mermaids (Kat Leyh, 2021)

first off: yes we are including graphic novels! that's just a honkin big comic! nobody @ me! anyway, I read Thirsty Mermaids in one sitting on an airplane earlier this year and it was delightful. it follows three mermaid besties who turn themselves into humans and go ashore in search of booze, only to get stuck when the party mage can't remember how to turn them back. what follows is a mix of shenanigans and genuinely heartwarming character development as the trio cope with being landlocked and try to survive capitalism. there's a high potential for a story like this to get cloyingly oversentimental, but Thirsty Mermaids struck the right balance for me the whole way through and never went overboard.

also, the character designs are soooooo fun. look at them!

2. My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness (Nagata Kabi, trans. Jocelyne Allen 2016)

MLEWL is one of those books that actually completely lives up to the hype and then some, and it totally knocked me on my ass the first time I read it. I didn't really know what to expect going in, but I was totally blown away by how boldly Nagata's willing to share the ugliest parts of her life through this reflection. it's so much more than romance and yearning (and that isn't even really resolved by the book's end! Nagata continues to struggle with interpersonal relationships in later books, which you should also read!), and it felt really refreshing to see such an honest depiction of how much being depressed and anxious and insecure can just fucking suck. but at the same time, Nagata's ability to turn all of that into art and process what she's experienced in a really levelheaded way as she finds the will to grow and change is really affirming.

I have to give a special note of appreciation to the actual sex scene and how intimacy is negotiated between Nagata and the sex worker she hires, especially the ultimate realization that sex is just an act and losing her virginity didn't really change anything about why she was unhappy in her life. as a sex educator, I really appreciated the honesty and sheer practicality of how it was all framed.

3. Nimona (ND Stevenson, 2015)

hi okay yes basic bitch alert I'M AWARE, but I reread Nimona last year to remind myself of why I didn't want to watch the Netflix adaptation and I was so right for that, because OG Nimona fucks so much harder. it's heartfelt but also chaotic and violent and funny and deeply jaded; I think when I mentioned it in my monthly reading synopsis here I described it as weird art for pissed off queer people by a weird pissed off queer person. and I stand by that! if you haven't read it already or if you haven't in a while, it's right there waiting for you with an open invitation to burn the entire corrupt government to the ground.

I know the word feral is overused and therefore cringe but christ, comic Nimona is feral. come on, man. just let her kill your ex. he's a cop.

4. Superman Smashes the Klan (Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru, 2020)

I had to get one DC comic in here, sue me! it's not Batman-related at all! it's a really rad Superman story that takes place in the 1940s and loosely reimagines an old radio serial, "Clan of the Fiery Cross," the was pretty much a 16-part hit piece on the KKK that was hugely successful in tarnishing their reputation and getting membership to drop. how cool is that? in this version we follow Lee family, Chinese-Americans who have just moved to Metropolis and are met with harassment from the local Klansmen, contrasted with Clark, early in his hero career, still figuring out the full extent of his alien abilities. you get some really nice parallel storytelling between the Lee kids, Tommy and Roberta, exploring what it means to be part of two different cultures at the same time Clark is going through something similar figuring out how to be a representative of two totally different planets, and it all works out in a way that's really sweet. now that I have a friend who's a baby I can't wait until he's old enough to get a copy.

it's an extremely comic book-y comic but in, like, the best way possible.

5. Hawkeye (Matt Fraction and David Aja, 2012-2015)

I can't believe I almost forgot to list tumblr darling Matt Fraction's Hawkeye! what do I even say about this series that hasn't been said already? I love the way Clint Barton is a sadsack piece of shit who's repeatedly ruined his own life, and I love rooting for him anyway because he's just trying so goddamn hard. and also because there's a teenage girl who stole his name and gimmick bullying him the whole time. (Kate Bishop you are everything to me and you will always be famous.) there are costumes and crime fighting but it's first and foremost a slice of life about a life that fucking sucks but keeps on trucking anyway, and that's so up my alley it's not even funny. a lot of the humor probably feels dated now but fuck it, the series is iconic for a reason.

MCU, eat your heart out.

bonus because I wrote out the whole thing and then decided I wanted to include a different one: Paper Girls (Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, 2015-2019)

I'd be lying if I said that the thing about this series that I love first and foremost wasn't the art, because Chiang's art is breathtaking and I'll read anything ever if he does the art on it. but it's also just a super cool twisty, time-bending story about four girls getting roped into some high sci-fi bullshit when they're just trying to finish up their paper routes the morning after Halloween and having everything go to hell around them. I really respect a series that is committed to being weird and doesn't really care if you don't understand what's going on for a decent chunk of the plot, especially because it all comes together in a way that's pretty satisfying. waiting to read the whole series in one big run once it was all published so that I could track all the little hints and clues and things coming together across time travel bullshit was mwah, delicious.

also more than anything it's a story about how you Do Not fuck with 12 year old girls, especially in packs, because they're metal as hell, and I'm really about that.

[scrunkore]

Scrunkore Media "Thread" 2023: Part 2

welcome back to the scrunko core

14) Ib (Switch, 2023)

One of the real classics of RPG Maker horror games, upgraded for the modern age in just a few little ways that manage to keep the experience feeling as it should. Ib has a perfectly bizarre and creepy atmosphere, making really good use out of its excellent concept of being trapped in a living art gallery, with decent enough puzzles to keep you engaged throughout. I'm a big fan of its vibes and its exploration of loneliness and art in general, and it has a really strong trio of characters and various different endings that I found myself liking a lot. Now's as good a time as any to check this game out. [4.5★]

15) Everything Everywhere All At Once (Movie, 2022)

Kind of a critical darling as well as an audience favourite around when it came out, and yeah, I agree with everyone else - this movie is fantastic. Really good and creative direction in an absolutely wild ride through parallel universes, family and generational trauma that I'm told can hit really hard for the Chinese-American demographic and others like it but can be enjoyed by just about anyone. It uses its ideas pretty much perfectly, and it has a whole multiverse of them to play with; I was fully engaged throughout the whole experience. It deserved those awards. [5★]

16) Fire Punch (Manga, 2016-2018)

Tatsuki Fujimoto's earlier manga series, wrapping up just before his biggest claim to fame began, really can feel like Chainsaw Man's fucked up older brother - and it kind of is, really. It does touch on some of the same things, but the world is even harsher and the suffering even greater, and the overall mood can seem a lot more nihilistic, but there is hope in there still. It's also a harder read than Chainsaw Man, but it stands alone as a rough tale of struggling through an apocalyptic world, and it gets bonus points from me for its heartbreaking trans character I don't want to spoil. I'm not sure how much I'd recommend it, with the particular kinds of misery involved feeling gratuitous at times, but I am glad I read it. [4★]

17) Super Lesbian Animal RPG (PC, 2022)

The title kind of says it all here, this is a superb RPG about anthro animal girls in lesbian relationships, and it does an excellent job at delivering exactly that with a lot more besides. The whole cast is likeable, even the asshole characters, and the story is a mix of really good fun and powerful emotional beats, naturally being queer as hell to boot. I really appreciate the gameplay too, it's by default a fairly easy game until pretty late, but it's quite well-balanced and goes out of its way to ensure you'll never even think about grinding (levels cap at 30, even), plus a lot of the fights are just really fun. Excellent visuals and incredible soundtrack too, just a perfectly well-rounded super lesbian animal RPG that I have no real complaints with at all. [5★]

18) Tembo the Badass Elephant (PC, 2015)

A little controversial back when it released for daring to be a Game Freak game not on either of the Nintendo consoles in circulation at the time, this game is... well, it's fine. Just a decent enough 2D action platformer that feels like if you modded Wario into a Sonic game with how you can speed through levels smashing up everything in your way, but the level design and even the odd boss fight reminds me of some of the worst parts of Sonic games at times, so I'm not super fond of it. It does have plenty of charm though, with a fun cartoony artstyle and some 3D setpieces that do make one wonder why it wasn't on 3DS. Controlling a badass action hero elephant saving as many people as possible is a neat idea, too. [3★]

19) Picross 3D (DS, 2009)

There have been many different takes on Picross over the years, under many different names as well, but almost nobody has done it quite like HAL did with Picross 3D. It feels like a whole different breed of puzzle, and it is indeed nothing like regular 2D Picross - the transformation into cube-based puzzles makes things far more advanced, often more difficult, and a lot more rewarding. There's not much more to this game other than the massive amount of puzzles to solve and the option to create your own, but it doesn't really need anything else. Some puzzles are extremely hard, but that's alright, and the game is the perfect fit for the DS hardware. [4★]

20) Picross 3D Round 2 (3DS, 2015)

I technically played this a bit later, but I think it makes sense to put this next to the first game. HAL managed to do it again, innovating further on the 3D Picross concept with different shapes that you can turn blocks into - a simple change, but one that goes surprisingly far towards making the game more enjoyable. It's a lot comfier with its presentation too, and there's even some surprisingly great music in there. Not much more to it than that, but it's still filled to the brim with a huge amount of puzzles, including bonus special Amiibo unlocks (there is a homebrew program to bypass this), and that's all I can ask of it once again. I'd hope for a third round, but I don't know that I'd like it as much without stylus controls... [4.5★]

21) The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog (PC, 2023)

Sonic coming out of nowhere on April Fool's with a shockingly high-effort "joke" project was unexpected, but that blue hedgehog does have a way of blindsiding you. The game is a small but lovingly made point-and-click revolving around a murder mystery party with a few fun twists happening towards the end, and it's pretty funny for the most part, so that's the "joke" part down. On top of that, it has a really solid grasp of the characters and how to write them, seemingly on par with the IDW comics, which is more than we've seen from most of the games until fairly recently. It's something of a breath of fresh air, with plenty of fanservice, and my only real complaint is the "THINK!" segments being kind of... not very good. But as a whole, this game is really nice, and I hope they do more creative projects like this in the future. They even got the "self-insert" protagonist right, because they're such a weird and silly one. They should murder Sonic more often! [4★]

22-23) Escaped Chasm/Dweller's Empty Path (PC, 2019/2020)

I'd like to group these together, because they're kind of part of the same interesting project from Temmie Chang (yes, the Undertale Temmie). Both very short RPG Maker games with zero combat and a focus on exploring all the dialogue and plot you can get out of them. Both games have their dark elements, but Escaped Chasm definitely has the most - it's got some upsetting bits, and the ending is rather bittersweet, but I did enjoy the short tale of the lonely girl. It kind of serves as a prequel to Dweller's Empty Path, though you won't know it until you see a certain part. Speaking of which, that game is pretty nice, mostly just being a walking simulator that you can end at any time by going to bed, but there is quite a bit of dialogue for you to see that fleshes out the world and characters, with hints at what might be to come in the future. Both games adopt a Game Boy style pixel art look with minimal colour palettes and I kind of like that about them, and the developer managed to rope in Toby Fox and Camellia for musical contributions, which is awesome. Overall, the games feel like they're setting up something rather interesting, also being rather interesting in themselves, and I hope Temmie is able to do more with this in the future. [3.5★]

24) OFF (PC, 2008)

Another certified RPG Maker classic that has somehow never been re-released in any form, unless you count the official English translation from 2011, and it's certainly an odd one. The vibes are deeply unsettling throughout, the morality of the protagonist is dubious at best, and it has all kinds of strange setpieces showcasing the utterly bizarre lore of its equally bizarre world. It's kind of hard to tell what it's even really about, but it contains themes relating to religion, illness, capitalism and more besides. There are even multiple endings, including a random joke one serving as a "reward" for beating a strange and lengthy secret boss, and honestly I think the game is more of a weird French art piece than anything else. The puzzles and battle system do kind of suck in several areas, so it's all about the feeling of the game in the end, and it certainly made me feel... something. I don't think anyone completely understands this game, but I do like what it tries to do, and I respect it. [3.5★]

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[sendme-2hell]

Ranking the books I read in 2022 by how much I liked them

20. The Power - Naomi Alderman

I really really hated this book. I think somewhere else I already talked about how much I hated it. The truth is that the concept is good. And I do agree that if women gained power over men that they would create power structures similar to what women currently experience under men. But the absence of any sort of queer/trans exploration seemed really glaring--especially from the author who gave us Disobedience. I felt it just wasn’t nuanced enough for me. 

19. Yerba Buena - Nina Lacour

Okay I really liked this book! I think there needs to be more coming of age books about lesbians in their 20’s-30’s and that's exactly what this book was. It was a bittersweet book about two women finding each other and themselves, but I didn’t quite latch onto it. 

18. The Oleander Sword - Tasha Suri 

I don’t have anything to say except I really liked the second installment in this series and I can’t wait for the next one! More enemies to lovers where they are still kinda enemies. 

17. The Echo Wife - Sarah Gailey

I liked the idea of this and almost all of the execution. It’s what would happen if a woman found out how to make clones that had the same personality as their source. Then her husband makes a clone of her. As you can imagine, it’s more about trauma and domestic abuse than cloning. Which works. 

16. The Glass Hotel - Emily St. John Mandel 

I love the Emily St. John Mandel Connected Universe. Even though I didn’t find these characters as compelling as some of her other works, one thing really stuck with me. In this book she speaks of the wealthy as living in their own country. Because they are so rich, wherever they go they are having similar experiences with similar people. They have more in common with rich people from other countries than poor people from their own. When characters lose wealth they are demoted to the country of the poor. 

15. Exciting Times - Naoise Dolan

Some people don’t like this book but I was having a good time. Sadly it’s hard not to make the Sally Rooney comparisons since it’s about a really self aware Irish woman noticing a lot about capitalism. But tbh I eat that shit up. Like Conversations with Friends, she is choosing between the idealized perfect woman love interest and the male love interest who will probably never love her. I don’t think it’s a hard decision but these women seem to really have a problem choosing. 

14. We do What We do in the Dark - Michelle Hart

This was another coming of age book about a female college student having an affair with a married female professor. I felt bad for her but also I’m sorry it is kinda sexy. That is absolutely not the point of the book though. 

13. The Vegetarian - Han Kang

One woman decides to be vegetarian and you will not BELIEVE the chaos this causes. I really liked the writing style. 

12. Disobedience - Naomi Alderman 

Unlike The Power, I loved this book. As a Jewish (but not close to how Jewish these characters are) queer woman, I loved this book about Jewish queer women. It was incredibly nuanced, and I was interested in how it explored religion and community and did not give a simple answer. Literally nothing will ever hit harder than women who are foils to one another. One woman is more open about her sexuality and has moved away from her stifling community but she isn’t happy either due to the crushing loneliness of modern capitalism, but the other woman while having community is not being honest about her sexuality and is dealing with oppressive sexism. But now where was the spitting scene from the movie?

11. Sea of Tranquility - Emily St John Mandel

I love time travel. I love meta media. This book was awesome. ESJM writes about her own experiences as the author of a famous pandemic book living during an actual pandemic, but also it takes place far in the future and there is time travel. Five stars. 

10. They Never Learn - Layne Fargo 

Is this book as much of a literary achievement as some of the books I’ve ranked lower on this list? Absolutely not. But it does have a queer woman murdering rapists and getting a happy ending. Incredibly cathartic 10/10. 

9. Fire & Blood - GRRM

I’m sorry this should not be ranked so high. Especially since I learned GRRM was pressured by HBO to work on this instead of winds of winter in time for HOTD to come out. But honestly I really liked it. I am a real sucker for seeing large family history and lineage and that’s exactly what this is. Also I love a good unreliable narrator! It adds this other layer to reading, where you can see the biases and societal norms influencing the writing. I find the sense of ambiguity quite powerful where you know multiple answers could be true, but also when the narrator is so unreliable you can imagine quite literally anything. I choose to imagine Visenya and Sharra of the Vale were lovers, Alys and Tyanna were lovers (and something really complicated went down), and that Rhaenyra and Alicent had a toxic age gap relationship. No one can stop me! 

8. Our Wives Under the Sea- Julia Armfield

This was a really creepy book about a woman whose wife goes to sea to research something and comes back changed. It reminds me of that part from The Doll House by CMM where she speaks about how the idea of possession is comforting because it implies it is not the person you love who has changed and is hurting you, but something else inhabiting their body. I love a book that uses sci-fi concepts to explore relationships. 

7. Nona the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir

I truly think this is the book that closest captures what it is like to be a child. I love Nona with all my heart. Can’t wait to see what happens to these crazy kids in Alecto. 

6. Everyone in this room will someday be dead - Emily R Austin

This book is funny and captures what it feels like to have anxiety in a scarily accurate way. It made me feel a lot of things. 

5. The Rehearsal - Eleanor Catton 

There is something so fascinating about media that explores the toxic relationship between competitive young artists (musicians and actors especially) and their mentors. The other book that comes to mind is Trust Exercise. Like that book, The Rehearsal has unreliable narrators and a peculiar structure. It is a little more raw and experimental; you can tell this is Catton’s first work. Yet I found it so powerful and thought provoking. 

4. Klara and the sun - Kazuo Ishiguro

I read this in a day but I can’t stop thinking about it. Just one of those books about AI and personhood and what if we could create a realistic person from AI? What about personality replication? But what was most interesting to me was how Klara created a religion out of what gave her life -- the sun. Also every time I see the M3gan trailer I think of this book.

3. Detransition, Baby - Torrey Peters

What an interesting book about gender, family, queerness, motherhood, etc…

2. Conjure Women - Afia Atakora

Another book I will think about for the rest of my life. It explores the life of three women (two black one white) living in the South before and after slavery is abolished. It explores a sort of intersectionality and is nuanced but not forgiving of the white woman. It also has a really interesting magical realism aspect which can be read as literal or metaphorical.

1. No one belongs here more than you - Miranda July

A short story collection that is incredibly weird yet so powerful. I am most drawn to authors who let their characters be as strange as humans are. Characters who have not-often-expressed thoughts are sometimes the most relatable because I personally am not going around narrating my life like a cliche standard romance novel and I don’t think most people are! I think most people are out here thinking the weirdest least-logical thoughts out there. And that’s great! I think what ties the stories in this collection together is that the narrators of each story are suffering from either extreme loneliness or trauma, and this leads them to act from a sort of logic that a “normal” person might not understand. But the reader can understand it. You can feel their loneliness radiating from the page and see it dictating their actions, and suddenly it makes sense. As we live through a pandemic, I truly relate to the extreme lengths these characters go through just to feel any sort of human connection.

[transandrobroism]

just from my own experiences i would say that... pre-transition:

- the general widespread negativity towards men in progressive/leftist/queer spaces - especially online - made it harder for me to realise i was trans. a lot of very terf-esque "kill all men" jokes, jokes about men being babies who need to be "housetrained" etc etc. it added up to a general impression that being a woman was "better" and that wanting to be a man was a step down somehow

- i didn't get good sex ed in school so the first i learned about trans people was in my 20s and the focus was mainly on trans women. it took several more years for me to realise that it was even possible to be a trans man. again, the general negative vibe towards any form of masculinity didn't help with this either.

post-transition:

- when i first came out i went through at least three online communities that were also very anti-men. it was hard to find community at all because all the supposedly mixed trans spaces ended up sidelining trans men somehow.

- one community i was in at around the time i came out to myself was for late blooming lesbians that advertised as an open space for nonbinary people, bi people etc. but in reality mods did very little to prevent a culture of "men are bad, attraction to men is bad, nonbinary is only okay if you're femme about it". i ended up leaving. a lesbian i made friends with there ghosted all contact with me when i told her i was a man and wanted to transition.

- i joined a few trans support/trans memes subreddits but they were also dominated by transfems for some reason. that's not bad in and of itself but they had a tendency to post "jokes" about how testosterone is poison and we should put estrogen in the water supply. it got tiring.

- another mixed trans server i joined was also largely trans women. there was a channel specifically for trans men and they had to restrict access after a bunch of transfems started posting long walls of text in there about their own experiences. it's a small thing but it contributed to the general vibe i got that online queer/trans spaces aren't really for transmascs.

- right here on tumblr i had to block several people for things like denying trans men experience any transphobia at all, calling trans men unsafe etc.

- i think people dismiss this kind of thing as a trivial concern but trans men have i think the highest rates of loneliness and suicidal ideation in the whole queer community. and a big part of that is queer spaces skewing femme and being "women and nonbinary" and generally ignoring or actively alienating trans men because masculinity makes people uncomfortable.

- i don't really have a friend group irl at this point because i lost my main friend group when i came out. they were variously transphobic/homophobic and i didn't feel safe coming out to them. some of them also didn't like socialising with men for various personal/cultural reasons and i didn't wanna make them uncomfortable.

- in general it feels very socially acceptable for women to hate on men and say they don't want male friends or don't want to hang out with men. it's like progressive spaces have flipped cultural misogyny on its head and the cool hip position is that men are terrible and it's okay to want to exclude them from spaces. sometimes this gets justified with the line of "well you wanted to be a man..." as if we're expected to take some gender euphoria from being treated with suspicion.

- i still don't reliably pass all the time and still get misgendered. i've experienced misogyny my whole life and still do sometimes in situations where i don't pass

- when i went to change my gender marker on my medical record i was told I'd lose access to things like gyno care because my record says 'M'. i have no idea what would happen if i needed an abortion

- the fear of sexual assault resulting in pregnancy is very real and probably won't go away until i get a hysto

some broader cultural stuff:

- testosterone is a controlled drug which makes getting it harder, and DIYing it harder

- online trans spaces for DIY hrt clamp down hard on anyone talking about DIY testosterone because it's a controlled drug. this is particularly impactful in the UK where we have waiting lists for trans care that are over 3 years long and often a lot longer.

- there is a lot of general fearmongering and negativity about ftm transition even in ftm spaces. it's a lot of "will T make me ugly/angry/hairy" and endless negativity about bottom surgery and how phallo "looks ugly" etc etc. there seems to be a lot of scary misinformation out there about the effects of T.

- the UK actually went through a stretch of several years where they did no ftm bottom surgeries at all. in the whole country no one was getting dick surgery.

- a lot of the current transphobic push has focused on transmascs and the whole "irreversible damage" thing. the transphobic Cass Review specifically mentioned the rising number of transmascs being referred to gender clinics as a cause for alarm, and that review was used to push through a ban on puberty blockers for trans teens.

- in general i feel like... transphobia towards transmascs involves treating us like confused self-hating women who've been brainwashed into mutilating our perfectly healthy bodies. it's a form of transphobia that infantilises us and treats us like we can't make our own decisions. somehow at the same time we're also inducing "rapid onset gender dysphoria" in vulnerable teen girls, apparently, which makes us sound like a weird cult.

- i also hear the "trans men pass easily" urban myth floating around queer spaces a lot which is bonkers to me. binders never worked for me. and you always hear about how unsafe they are to wear for long periods of time and how you can damage your ribs etc. i can't tell if that's true or just more scare stories about how dangerous it is to be transmasc, but either way it's like... if you're pre-top surgery "passing" involves wearing the Scary Compression Garment that will Break Your Ribs which is either a legit health concern or alarmism that serves to make ftm transition sound terrifying

i can't say for sure how much of this is specific to transmascs, but if i had to pick the main themes of anti-transmasculinity it would be: (a) queer spaces really don't like men and masculinity and trans men often get pushed to the margins or excluded entirely; (b) transmasc transition treated as something terrifying and dangerous to ourselves and those around us; and (c) condescending treatment from transphobes who think we're being inherently misogynistic just for transitioning at all.

❗️❗️ This is asked entirely in good faith. This post is intended to open dialogue and help with solidarity and understanding. ❗️❗️

I would like to hear specifically from trans men and trans mascs how the system of [whatever the fuck you call the intersection of transphobia, misogyny, and specifically your gender- whether transandrophobia, isomisogny, antitransmasculinity, transandromisia, transmisandry, or any that I have missed as there are a lot of words to describe similar concepts] uniquely targets and affects you. Things that you feel other demographics do not experience. Reblogs and replies are very encouraged! If you would prefer, you could dm or send an ask to be added anonymously by me.

This is in the spirit of wanting to understand. I am listening. I encourage all non-trans-mascs to not speak on this topic and let trans mascs and trans men do the talking here. Reblog the post to spread it, but please say nothing.

Any and all people who identify as trans men and/or trans mascs are encouraged to participate.

This is not bait to start a fight. I will block without hesitation anyone who is actively being a shithead on this post. I want to hear and uplift your voices by getting it directly from you.

Click this to access the trans fem and trans women version of this post.

Click this to access the nonbinary version of this post.

Click this to access the intersex version of this post.

[ai-ley]

RTA 950 Final Blog Post - Written at an altitude of roughly 35,000ft!

I wrote most of this blog post during my flight home, so of course I had to include a plane pic!

From the first look at the syllabus, I knew that my YMCP would focus on queerness in some capacity. As someone whose journey of coming to terms with her sexuality was very much intertwined with media consumption (see below…), I deeply understand the power of representation and the connection between storytelling and identity. 

Brittany and Santana from Glee, via Bustle

“I love Santana and Brittany a normal amount, I swear! I don’t have a weird attachment to their relationship! I’m straight!” - 13-year old me, probably

I was also very lucky to work with Karlie and Emma for this final project; while we had similar goals and experiences, our different creative approaches made this a challenging but enjoyable process. A personal aside: having the opportunity to work with two other lesbians (and friends, of course!) was very rewarding. Being a lesbian can be isolating. Exploring our shared struggles and working together to fight the loneliness that our tween selves experienced was both cathartic and fun. We laughed a lot during this process! 

Because Karlie, Emma and I understand how formative the tween years are for queer youth, centering tweens and media representation felt like the best way to accomplish our goals of providing an “older sister” perspective and exploring the nuances of queer kids’ content. Though we had a solid goal, determining the exact method of execution was challenging. What started as a Zine became a Tiktok account, a blog, and then finally, a video essay and Tiktok page. Our biggest initial flaw was a lack of consideration for our audience. While we knew what topics our audience needed, there were times when we let our personal preferences or past experiences get in the way of finding a suitable platform for tweens today. After much consideration, we landed on Tiktok as the best platform. Social media is proven to “...open up opportunities for information seeking, communication, collaboration, and media literacy among learners in different spaces” (Herr Stephenson 2021, p. 472). Though not designed as an explicitly educational site, informal engagement with Tiktok offers valuable learning opportunities in a tween-accessible way. 

Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune via Tumblr.

As Sailor Moon fans and lovers of all things queer and nostalgic, the three of us knew that the relationship between these two (...Cousins?) would make for an engaging, relevant topic. It’s perfect that the “retro” Sailor Moon is making its Tiktok comeback!

For our final product, I mostly focused on the video essay. After a group brainstorming session, I did some research, co-wrote the script with Karlie, and recorded/touched up the audio so it was completely ready for visuals. I also helped brainstorm and write a few of the Tiktoks and created the video discussion questions. At first, I defaulted to my usual “academic podcast” style of scripting and presenting, which doesn’t make for the most compelling product for 11-15 year-olds; once again, I was distracted by my own methods and ended up neglecting the youth perspective. Upon reflection, I feel like I should have a swear jar-esque system where I put a looney into a jar every time I don’t consider the youth perspective.

An artistic rendering of my “Neglecting Youth Perspectives” Jar. Made with Canva!

It was harder than I thought to break out of my usual mold, but the class’s feedback during our group presentation was constructive and encouraged us to pivot our project one last time. Since it was a bit too late to completely change the video, we decided to make the video essay a specifically academic piece designed for schools. Going back to both Matthew Johnson’s presentation and Tatyana’s research, this course has strongly emphasized how important it is to meet kids where they are. Effective media education respects that “Children and youth know more about these new media environments than most parents and teachers. In fact, we do not need to protect them so much as engage them in critical dialogues that help them to articulate more fully their intuitive understandings of these experiences” (Jenkins 2009, p. 12). Working to understand (Research! Research! Research!) and utilize the platforms that youth are engaging with is key to designing effective curriculum. 

As such, we also decided to add a few, more tween-friendly Tiktoks as an aside to our educational video, to better appeal to the target audience and provide more accessible methods of engaging with our project. We also worked to make the video more visually/tonally compelling for younger audiences so it wouldn’t be a total snooze-fest if they were watching it in class. I hope that this type of project could help queer youth feel safer exploring their own identities and make critical conversations about queerness, representation, and media literacy more accessible and prevalent within middle and high school settings. I’m very interested in media education, so it was great to be able to further explore youth media through this type of mini-curriculum development. I’m very happy with the final form that this project took, and I can confidently say that my passion for youth media and education has only grown with each class. 

Overall, I enjoyed our weekly discussions and hearing my peers' diverse perspectives. It was also great to see everyone’s approaches to the YMCP, many of which offered really lovely and valuable ways of connecting to youth. How lucky I am to be exploring a field filled with so much hope, potential, and joy-- and how lucky I am that there is so much more to learn. 🌸

Thank you for a great semester!

Citations ->

[lesovoj]

As a bisexual I actually relate to your post about easy dating life for the cishets.

I know I’ve OPTIONS but one thing people rarely talk about is, how lonely being bisexual can be because sometimes neither party wants you. I’ve had guy’s fetishize me and talk about threesomes from the get go and be rejected by lesbians too because I’d eventually ✨cheat✨. And like always the bisexual men prefer men instead.

And now I just keep to myself and never date. I’m an introvert by nature so it makes it even harder to be out there and just try to date just to fail.

So yes most of the times I wish I was straight or at least in the closet.

anon i'm so sorry i get how that feels. i love being a lesbian and i would never want to be anything else but i have to admit seeing straight women date and find love so much easier than me makes me feel some type of way.

i wish it was easier for us i really do the loneliness queer people feel is so real and no matter how much we talk about it i feel like we dont talk about it enough.

but we shouldn't just give up because it is hard you know. I'm sure there are men and women who will treat you right and respect your sexuality and who you are as a person. i wish you the best of luck out there❤ if you decide to go back to dating that is

if you want to talk about it in more detail you can always dm me

[tallmantall]

James Donaldson on Mental Health - Social Isolation and Loneliness

Social connection is important for our physical and mental well-being. It helps prevent feelings of isolation, which may cause things like anxiety, depression, cognitive decline and unhealthy lifestyle habits. When we think about staying healthy, making sure you have social support  may easily get lost on our list of to-do’s. But while taking care of your health includes the things you might think about —  like eating a balanced diet and exercising regularly — and also it also includes taking time to be with friends and family. Who is most affected by social isolation? While loneliness may impact anyone at some point in their life, certain groups of people may be at greater risk of spending too much of their time solo. That means they may not get much social interaction for one reason or another. It’s important to recognize people commonly affected by loneliness so you can identify them in your own life. Then maybe consider extending an invite to your next social gathering. Here’s who may benefit:1 Older adults: Older adults and seniors have an increased risk of loneliness because they may experience more things that keep them home. That includes things like mourning the loss of a loved one, managing a chronic illness or living with hearing loss that keeps them out of conversations. Plus, they are more likely to live alone. People new to an area: Anyone new to any area may not have strong social ties to their neighborhood or local community. People in specific groups (such as immigrants, people who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, Intersexed (LGBTQ+); people with disabilities): When people are in specific groups, they may feel like they don’t fit in with their peers, which could keep them home by themselves. For immigrants, it may be harder to meet new people and form friend groups, especially if there’s a language barrier. What are the health risks of loneliness? There are also very real physical and mental health side effects that may come with too much alone time. Here are a few:2 - Increased stress - Hindered sleep - Decreased sense of purpose - Depression and anxiety - Increased inflammation - Poor immune system (less immunity) - For adults 50 and older, recent studies found that social isolation was associated with a 50% increased risk of dementia, and an overall increase in depression, anxiety and suicide.3 #James Donaldson notes:Welcome to the “next chapter” of my life… being a voice and an advocate for #mentalhealthawarenessandsuicideprevention, especially pertaining to our younger generation of students and student-athletes.Getting men to speak up and reach out for help and assistance is one of my passions. Us men need to not suffer in silence or drown our sorrows in alcohol, hang out at bars and strip joints, or get involved with drug use.Having gone through a recent bout of #depression and #suicidalthoughts myself, I realize now, that I can make a huge difference in the lives of so many by sharing my story, and by sharing various resources I come across as I work in this space.  #http://bit.ly/JamesMentalHealthArticleFind out more about the work I do on my 501c3 non-profit foundationwebsite www.yourgiftoflife.org Order your copy of James Donaldson's latest book,#CelebratingYourGiftofLife: From The Verge of Suicide to a Life of Purpose and Joy Link for 40 Habits Signupbit.ly/40HabitsofMentalHealth www.celebratingyourgiftoflife.com What are tips to help with loneliness? Make and nurture social connections Consider an animal companion Find time for mindfulness Practice self-care Where can I find more resources on social isolation and loneliness? This educational resource has more information on social isolation and loneliness and tips for staying connected. If you are feeling isolated or lonely a lot of the time, you may want to visit your primary care provider and share your concerns. Talking with a doctor about how you feel physically, emotionally and mentally may help them make recommendations that could be helpful to you. Read the full article

[seaottersandstrings]

something lgbt just happened to me (extreme emotional pain edition)

(ignore me I just need an internet void to scream in where she wont see it or read if you’re nosy and willing to be nice about it)

(also if anyone has any advice for how to not be so fucked up about the girl who is kinda your ex but not really (in the “never actually dated but we both had feelings and acted like it a lot” way) officially dating a new person for the first time since she shattered your heart into a million tiny pieces please dm me said advice this is 100% serious)

like we have all the same friends and it’s been over half a year so I feel weird talking to irl people about it. even I am surprised at how intensely the emotions punched me in the lungs when she told us she has a bf now. like cmon brain I knew we weren’t over this but I thought we were at least getting better. 

also there’s the added fun layer of “her own internalized biphobia and biphobic family members made it so our connection was always laced with shame and repression and suffering anyway.” and now she gets to celebrate this moment with friends and family and do boy talk with her mom and ask her parents for advice about this guy she’s known for a couple months and have an easy friends to lovers arc with him. while I was stuck listening to her family coo over how she should get back with her ex bf once he transferred to our college while she and I were literally sleeping in the same bed the night before. but bc I’m not a guy ofc nothing could possibly have been going on there. 

like you’re telling me I was in a years-long, will-they-won’t-they sufferfest where I was embarrassingly emotionally devoted to this person only for npc #3 to crawl out of the woodwork and get the instant stamp of approval for wanting to get to know her better and giving it the old college try? 

and to be clear I’m not blaming her she feels how she feels and obviously the bi/homophobia is a societal/community level issue. it just sucks so bad to fall so deeply in love with someone over such a long time and have those feelings be treated less seriously because of things we can’t control. like just on top of the regular heartbreak of it all. and believe me the regular heartbreak of it all is more than enough for my little eggshell heart to handle. 

and on a regular heartbreak level it also sucks because she’s a good person that I genuinely care about on a non-romantic level and still think very highly of. like our relationship wasn’t and still isn’t perfect but she’s one of the best people in my life and an objectively decent human being. so it’s not like I can even rationalize to myself “well it was toxic” (actually maybe the dynamic was but like SHE wasn’t a toxic person y’know) or “she treated me badly” or “she sucks so I’m better off now anyway.” like no she’s wonderful and her new bf is very lucky life just sucks sometimes. 

did I mention she and I are still best friends and even though we live in different cities now which helps I still have to pretend to be totally 100% excited about this for the sake of being a good bestie? like god I love being a lesbian if I had to do life all over again and got a choice I would choose to be queer every single goddamn time. but this is the most painful shit I’ve ever felt in my life and that’s a pretty high bar at this point. especially since this is technically not my first heartbreak but it’s my first one since realizing I’m a lesbian and not bi and started having a lot of The Piercing Loneliness of Breaking Every Societal Expectation feelings about it. like I think my brain was unintentionally pulling a “maybe I’ll turn out normal-passing” on itself (which is total bullshit) for a while there. and even though I know that was bullshit coming to terms with being a lesbian was so much harder for me than coming to terms with being queer at all and everything related to it has just felt so much more intense since. 

and on some level I’m also jealous bc she got out and can have a relationship she can celebrate and talk about with her family without fear and I can never have that. like bi people obviously go through so much shit and have a hard time getting both straight and gay people to take them seriously and as someone who lived that (in the “other people treated me like I was bi bc we all thought I was” sense) and thought that was who I was for 7 years I would never want to diminish that but oh my god being on the other side now I can understand how easy it is to let yourself get bitter. And I never want to be that person but at the same time speaking purely of my own experience it didn’t take me so long (2+ years) to figure out I was a lesbian because I just didn’t know like at some point deep down I knew especially near the end of my questioning era but I kept asking myself “well are you SURE?” because didn’t want to face the loneliness of it. Of closing the door on the last possible chance I had for my family and I to bond over something in a normal way for once. And coming out again was incredibly freeing but I also had to be willing to break my own heart to do it and the compounding heartbreak is just so much. 

anyway if anyone is reading this I love you and I hope you’re having a better day than me. happy new year. 

[thesweetpianowritingdownmylife]

(Disclaimer: I have only watched the show, not read the books, and the info about the books comes from the wiki. If you see any inaccuracies regarding them, let me know)

So let’s talk about Heartstopper.

It was recommended to me as a show that had everything! Lesbians in love! Gay guy! Bi guy! Trans girl getting a romance! Something for everyone!

You know. If you’re thin.

This caveat is always there, to the point that I’m used to it. The glittering world of movies and tv shows exists only for thin people. If there is a fat person, they are only going to be there to be made ridiculous, evil, gluttonous, or all three, so at this point I’ll take a full thin cast and try not to think about how I don’t exist there.

Enter Isaac.

Isaac... reads. And is fat. And those are the only things we know about him.

Charlie says “he doesn’t talk much”, and yeah, we know that too, since he barely has any lines and his main role is to stand there and smile awkwardly in the background. He is literally asleep in one of the scenes. The writers seem to forget he even exists during the later part of the show, and honestly, it unintentionally makes his friends look like total jackasses.

Tao’s fear of being alone, now that Charlie has got a new friend and Elle has gone to another school? BRUH ISAAC IS RIGHT THERE.

The triple date? Elle and Tao didn’t know it was a triple date. From their perspective, Charlie had invited them and not Isaac to hang out with some of his other friends. Rude??

Isaac has no storyline, no wants, no passions, barely any lines, and he disappears as the story develops. He just reads. And is fat.

Alice Oseman, the creator of the book/writer of the show didn’t want one of their original characters (Aled) there because they wanted to use him for something else, so it was decided they needed an extra person to complete the friend group, hence Issac. Fine, sure, that’s not bad. But if you wanted to make a character who doesn’t pass the flowerpot test, you might as well... not have put anyone there. It would make Tao’s fear of loneliness seem that much more realistic. And Isaac, with his lack of....everything, sticks out like a sore thumb, and is understandably hated by fans of Aled who see him as his replacement.

When Tao referred to himself as “the token straight friend” in the first episode, I perked up. “Oh? Oh? Is Isaac going to be some flavour of Not Straight? A fat queer character? I wonder how this will develop?”

The answer is it didn’t. That’s all we heard from it. Alice Oseman simply said on a tweet that Isaac is aro/ace. It’s worth noting that Alice herself is aro/ace; before I discovered I was baffled, thinking “you really can’t think of anything for an aroace character to fucking do??”, but no, I think this is more likely to be an identity assigned to Isaac as an afterthought.

Everything about Isaac seems to be an afterthought.

Now, there is not a problem inherently on making a fat aroace character... if you have other fat characters. Otherwise, it just looks like you can’t possibly imagine a fat person falling in love and having sex, which is, you guessed it! Really fucking fatphobic.

Let’s go back to the characters from the book that didn’t make it to the show. There is one other, apart from Aled. Sahar Zahid. Let’s take a look at her.

Ah.

According to the wiki, "out of the main eight members of the Paris Squad, Sahar is the least explored member". Jesus Fucking Christ.

So. You had one (1) fat character that you decided to cut off for no given reason, and who was the least developed to begin with [EDIT: Apparently she doesn't appear until later events of the book, so she wasn't cut off for no reason, but she is still the least developed]. And then you added another fat character as a space-filler, without bothering to give him a personality other than “reads” and “is quiet”.

As I said, I usually ignore that there are no fat characters in sight, and that shows only show the rich inner lives of thin people. It’s harder to do when there is a fat person right there, having barely any personality and 0 impact on the plot.

You can have all the letters of the alphabet soup, but it is useless unless you have different body types. What use is it to have a trans girl who looks like a supermodel to a fat trans teenager watching this show? Remember that being fat is the number one reason kids get bullied. Fat people are taught from a young age that shows and movies are not For Us, same as any other marginalized identity.

Heartstopper will continue to reinforce that lesson.

[ciaran-archive]

Sorry to pry but can you elaborate on the authenticity post and what you don’t like about Ender’s Game? I don’t mean this in an accusatory way btw I genuinely wanna hear you complain about it.

WHY YES I WOULD LOVE TO BITCH ABOUT ENDER'S GAME

my fatal flaw as a person is that i cannot stop thinking about ender's game . like this book lives in my head in a way that far better books i've read just don't and i think that's partly because it did so much to me.

i read it when i was, 13, i think? like. i was just kind of figuring out that i was queer, i was weirdly uncomfortably obsessed with m/m relationships, even the vaguest implication of lesbianism made me feel sick and awful, i was pretty depressed, i had very few friends, and i wasn't....in a good place at all.

and i read ender's game and it kind of maybe saved my life? it showed me that being alone and being lonely weren't inherently a death sentence. it allowed me something i still don't have a name for. ender and valentine and peter felt like facets of a reality i nearly had, and in their reflection i could be something more like myself. who knows where i would have been but for ender's game!

it also fucked me up so bad.

one of the core messages of ender's game - and of a lot of OSC's other work - is that you cannot be truly Original, and you can't Create Anything Worth Creating, if you derive from the work of others. to make something Really Great you must isolate all your creativity and not allow anything else to influence it or it will be tainted and suspect forever. like not in those words but in that essence, that was clearly one of the subtexts of the book.

the other core message is "it is necessary for adults to hurt children; it is irresponsibly stupid as a child, especially a clever child, to trust that adults will ever not hurt you" and combined with the valorized loneliness of the first message it kind of.......still messes me up? and one of the reasons it fucked me up was because i was so bad at adhering to its lessons.

and that's my problem with ender's game at the end of the day: it's like drinking nuclear waste water when you're dying of thirst. like yeah it'll save your life but it'll also teach you how to justify doing the worst things possible (to yourself and others) and i was damned lucky that fiction was my first outlet for those urges and justifications because good god i don't like thinking about what it would've been like directed at myself without any barriers! and it was pretty bad even so!

OSC is also wildly unreasonably and rabidly homophobic so there's, uh, that. To Deal With.

the thing about authenticity is that it doesn't really exist. there's no true self, only selves less articulated or entirely unacknowledged for whatever reasons. sometimes those selves aren't given form because they have nothing to do with us. but we exist in a constant state of becoming; we are built in relation to our surroundings, and we can never strive to be free of influence. isolation is its own form of torture.

there are no authentic cultures either, only arbitrary markers we place in our pasts to delineate the "real" from the "influences" like every culture isn't a snapshot of its moment in time. things are always changing and turning into something new. they rarely become more "themselves" because the idea that you can strip away everything an outsider gave you and still end up with something either real or worth having is....kind of sad, really? do you want to know the person you are without everyone you've ever loved?

it's one thing to talk about capitalism and the commodification of the self and cults of personality and another to act like the very act of articulating your identity in a series of labels/aesthetics/shiny online things inherently corrupts your "soul". this process exists offline also; we are always building ourself to be approved of or disapproved of or reacted to or ignored by the people around us.

but people get really bogged down in the idea of authenticity and the specter of a real self that can be accessed by jumping through various hoops (go offline! go on instagram! make a succulent garden! get a tiktok! buy this thing!). and then they start acting superior because they don't need the internet to feel like their "real self" - as a friend said, sounds like they have a surprising amount of ability to be their real self with parents and bosses and cops - like i'm sorry! some of us are queer and trans and autistic and can't access an offline social group! and even if i did i would prefer to be online a lot of the time: the internet is full of spaces where i'm safe and in control, and that's just harder irl. and my experiences aren't any less valuable than those of someone with different ones.

...anyway, that's on authenticity.

[mediaevalmusereads]

Carmilla. By J. Sheridan Le Fanu. New York: Penguin, 2006 (originally 1872).

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Genre: horror novella

Part of a Series? No

Summary: In an isolated castle deep in the Austrian forest, Laura leads a solitary life with only her ailing father for company. Until one moonlit night, a horse-drawn carriage crashes into view, carrying an unexpected guest – the beautiful Carmilla. So begins a feverish friendship between Laura and her mysterious, entrancing companion. But as Carmilla becomes increasingly strange and volatile, prone to eerie nocturnal wanderings, Laura finds herself tormented by nightmares and growing weaker by the day… Pre-dating Dracula by twenty-six years, Carmilla is the original vampire story, steeped in sexual tension and gothic romance.

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: blood, desecration of a corpse, implied racism

Overview: I feel like I knew a lot about Carmilla without having actually read it, so for October 2021, I decided to put it on my spooky TBR pile. I loved pretty much everything about this novella: the 19th century prose, the feeling of dread and suspense, the Gothic hallmarks. And who can say no to a lesbian vampire story? While there were some questionable moments here and there, and I do think the novella ended a bit too quickly, I thought this book was a delight.

Writing: If you don’t like 19th century literature and prose, you probably won’t be a fan of this novella. Le Fanu writes like you would expect a man of his time: long descriptions of the protagonist’s background, a tale within a tale that seems to go on forever, clauses placed willy-nilly. I’m not personally bothered by these things because I know what they’re doing, literarily. But if you’re looking for action or a story full of blood and terror, this might not be a good fit for you.

It is a good fit for those who want a relatively quick-moving 19th century story. I was actually impressed by how quick the narrative moved, and my only complaint is that, towards the end, perhaps it went too quickly. After Carmilla’s identity is revealed, things just kind of go as planned and there’s no trouble when bringing about an end. I think I would have liked to see more conflict there, but Le Fanu was writing a novella, not a novel, so I can see where he would have been constrained.

As a last point: I do love the romantic tension between our protagonist (Laura) and Carmilla, though the predatory, lesbian tone is not nearly as heavy as I expected. Instead, there’s a sense of mutual attraction and revulsion, and while some may interpret this as internalized homophobia, I personally didn’t think Le Fanu was explicitly condemning same-sex affection or even portraying lesbianism as inherently predatory. In some ways, I think Le Fanu could have gone harder on the queerness, but as this is a 19th century story, we’re only going to get so much before we tiptoe into blatant homophobia.

Plot: This novella follows Laura, a young woman living in a relatively isolated castle, and her experience with an unexpected visitor, Carmilla. After a few introductory chapters that detail Laura’s background and an unsettling event from her childhood, the main narrative begins when Laura and her father receive the devastating news that their friend, General Spielsdorf, will not be coming to visit because his niece has died. As Laura is wallowing in her loneliness, they happen upon a carriage accident. A woman steps out of the carriage and tells Laura’s father that she is on an urgent errand, and since her daughter (Carmilla) is injured, she must find someone who will take her in for the duration of a few months while the errand is being completed. Laura’s father agrees to take Carmilla in, and the two girls quickly become attached. After some time, the villagers in the surrounding area begin succumbing to a mysterious disease, and Laura herself starts to decline in health.

The value of this narrative is primarily in the way Le Fanu reimagines the vampire lore of his time. From what I understand, vampires were considered to be almost bestial at the time of Le Fanu’s writing, but Carmilla was one of the first to make them sensual and alluring. For that reason, it was interesting to consider how Le Fanu was pioneering a genre or set of vampire tropes; the story wasn’t particularly interesting for being vastly different from contemporary vampire stories, where sensuality is commonplace. Still, I enjoyed myself, even if I wasn’t experiencing a lot of twists and turns.

Characters: Laura, our narrator and protagonist, is easy to like in that her narrative elicits sympathy. Since the novella is written in first person, readers get to see Laura’s thought processes and experience her loneliness and longing for a companion. While there’s not too much to set Laura apart from other literary women, I did like her as a character; she was kind and eager to please, and I very much wanted her to be happy.

Carmilla, our antagonist, was sufficiently strange without being overtly evil. I liked that she was portrayed as being overly attached to Laura, but that attachment felt less predatory and more intimate, even romantic. There was little doubt in my mind that Carmilla truly loved Laura, and I liked how those emotions complicated the relationship between the two women.

Supporting characters did their jobs fairly well. Laura’s father was loving and admirable for both his generosity and his concern for his daughter. General Spielsdorf was sufficiently determined and driven. The governesses were fine and mainly existed to establish mood. There was, however, a questionable character, which may betray some racism (unless I misunderstood the passage). Laura mentions seeing a mysterious black woman wearing a head wrap or turban at the site of the carriage accident. This character is said to peek out of the carriage and then disappear, and she’s never discussed again. I have no idea what’s going on with that, but that’s about the extent of things.

TL;DR: Carmilla is a swift-moving 19th century novella that reimagines the vampire lore of its day. While it won’t dazzle readers who are steeped in “sensual” vampire narratives, it is a valuable piece of literary history, for both the horror genre as a whole and for lesbian fiction.

[portraitofadumbassonfire]

On Biphobia

I’m an empathetic person, there’s good & bad things that come with it. When it comes to why people (especially those in the LGBTQ+ community) are biphobic, I think there are different factors to why they are other than plain ignorance. 

Those factors? Jealousy, Insecurity, & “Passing”  

Dating and finding love is difficult  but being in the queer community dating is an uphill battle, and it’s even harder for those who identify as bisexual. I identify as gay so I know how strong the loneliness can get, I also know how strong the jealousy can get as well. (I can be the jealous type i will admit) A lot of biphobes say they don’t want to date someone who is bisexual because they think they’ll cheat, despite the fact that there are a LOT of gays who cheat pretty much for fun, they feel like they will have to compete with the rest of the world if they like someone who is bisexual because their dating pool is bigger and they’ve probably dealt with people who have played games with their emotions while at the same time making a bad name for actual bi people. But the thing is....from what I’ve from many bisexuals, dating isn’t easier, some don’t even disclose their sexuality or just say they’re gay so they don’t have to explain themselves because I’m sure at this point they’re tired of having doing that.

That jealousy bleeds into the argument that Bi people whom are with someone of the opposite sex can pass as straight in public much easier than the rest of the community. Personally....I feel like Bi people can, but that’s only when they’re around straight people, when they come to their own community where they SHOULD feel safe and yet... here they are being ostracized by people who they thought would be more accepting of their sexuality, because yes they can blend in easier but that doesn’t mean straight people can’t be biphobic. (And i’m gonna go on a small tangent and say y’all kill me with this “gold star” shit, we’re not in a fucking kindergarten class) 

I will admit, I have been that kind of person and will slip up sometimes, I can be jealous and selfish when I like a guy and pretty much just want him to pay attention to me only (Ik i sound insane), but I have to remind myself of what I dealt with eternally with figuring out my sexuality (even as a virgin) and how I HATED having it be invalidated or even judged for not being “gay enough” because I’ve never been with a woman, so how can I know I’m gay? I DON’T HAVE THE DESIRE FOR WOMEN SEXUALLY that’s how I know. No one, especially in the queer community likes to have their sexuality or their gender to judged by someone else’s standards, I know i don’t like that, why should I do that to someone else, especially someone form my own community?

On insecurity.... I’m gonna on another tangent but it’s related to insecurity(This is gonna sound pathetic) I’m a big Harry Styles fan (yeah no shit) and I’ve loved how over the past few years he’s been expressing his sexuality, but being in his fanbase, or even being in the 1D fanbase can poke at my insecurity at times, it’s not really anyone’s fault, it’s just how I feel about it. Most of H’s fanbase is consistent of str8 girls/bi girls/and lesbians, which is not a negative thing, but as a gay man, I can feel like a fish out of water at times. It kind of goes back to why I previously thought I’d never fawn over a boyband member because I thought “I’m not gonna play with my own emotions like that” I’d see millions of female fans lose their minds over these guys and some of them hope they have a chance to date any of them, I thought if I joined in on their fawning, I’d look and feel stupid because none of us would have a chance with them and if we did, I’d have a MUCH lesser chance than they did, so I vowed I’d never lose my mind over a boyband member. That’s until I found out about a certain green-eyed MF and the rest is history. It’s part of why I’ve been secretly dreading his upcoming music video after seeing the filming of it because it reminds me all too much of that insecurity; That I have no chance at all with the men I’m attracted to. (Not to mention the song where it’s suggested he’s talking about sucking dick is unreleased and only sung on tour, yet the song that’s suggestively about eating pussy is a single and has a music video) I know that’s a very negative thing to think about, but it’s something that’s been stuck in the back of my head for years and I know there are other gay male fans of Harry but let’s be real the last time I’ve seen some acknowledgement was that gay vodka moment & the “yes daddy I will” moment (A black gay male fan yelled that at him and he repeated it and I saw so many pretend as if he wasn’t responding to a guyor straight up say a female fan said that even though there is video footage of the dude saying it) I’m not gonna get on the topic of H’s fans who disregard his attraction to men, I’ll be here all day unsurprisingly the queer fans are the ones whom I’ve seen call out that bullshit. That’s my own personal insecurity, but I know I’m not the only one who feels or has felt that way. That’s at least one place, I’m sure some people’s biphobia stems from, personal insecurity.

I think a lot of biphobia comes from ignorance, but I think it also comes from hurt or the fear of being hurt even more. I can understand that fear all too well,  I’ve been hurt by other people, not romantically (yet) and honestly I have and feel that fear strongly, but so do Bi people, we’re all humans with emotions that don’t have an off switch, and I also know that being oppressive toward someone else in an already oppressed community won’t help in any way, no matter how much you convince yourself it can. I know i’m not saying anything brand new or ground-breaking I just felt like airing that out.

I hope I don’t cussed out for this post.

[lesbianmonsterlover]

Fem Minotaur x Fem Reader

You didn’t know if it was lucky or unlucky that your little office window faced the big glass wall of the gym across the street,  because while you appreciated the view you got from time to time, it definitely made it harder to work.  There was an incredible looking minotaur woman who led weightlifting classes and coached the powerlifters.  Her broad back was covered in tawny fur, and irregular white spots.  You knew from the times she would correct form that she had a big white splotch on her muzzle and around her eyes, giving her long white eyelashes and a cute pink nose.  You desperately wanted to know what it felt like to have those huge hands caressing over your curves.  You sigh, your little queer heart aflutter, before you’re pulled out of your reverie by the shrill ringing of your office phone.

By the time you return from the early afternoon meeting, where you’re forced to listen to the higher-ups drone on and pat themselves on the back for projects actually managed and completed by workers like you they consider peons, you’ve almost ground your teeth down to nothing.  You collapse into your desk chair and huff, thankful the clock says you’ve only got three more hours before you can go home.  At five on the nose you shut down and clock out, sighing in relief as you walk through the front door of the building and start off down the street to get home.  Your commute isn’t long, but it does tend to be cramped, which can make you even more self conscious of the amount of space you fear you take up.  Sure you aren’t as big as, say, an orc, but it’s not like they can help it!  They’re merely built that way as a species!  You were just a chubby human. 

You make it back to your apartment, your little studio feeling lonelier and lonelier as of late.  You’ve been considering adopting a pet for a while, but have been concerned that your lifestyle would make it hard on an animal companion.  A dog was definitely out of the question, but perhaps now that you’re working more regular hours you can get yourself a cat to come home to.  That’s how you find yourself walking into your local shelter on a warm Saturday, out of your professional clothes and in a flowy, summery dress printed with pale watercolor roses.  The broad smile that crosses your face when you walk into the air conditioned front room gives way to a shy blush when the gorgeous minotaur woman from the gym struts by in a volunteer apron, two large bags of dog food slung over her shoulders.  You miss the greeting from the human behind the counter, which just makes her giggle and send you a knowing wink before repeating herself.  “Welcome, what brings you in today?  Looking for a furry friend, maybe a fuzzy girlfriend?”

The sly addition just makes you blush and stutter back that you were hoping to come by and adopt a cat.  Someone calm and older than a kitten, but still cuddly and playful on their own terms.  Her smile brightens and she perks up.  “Oh I’m so glad to hear you say that!  We have many older cats looking for loving homes, let me get someone to take you into the cat room with a few of our options…”  The smirk on her face almost seems sinister, if her eyes hadn’t been so warm and understanding you may have been concerned, but before you can voice any of this to her she turns and heads into the back, coming back mere moments later with the huge minotaur woman in tow.

You feel tiny as she looks down at you with a warm and professional smile.  You give you a shy grin, cheeks hot, and try to stutter out a greeting.  “Kharya will show you to the back room and give you a run down on some of our tenants, I’d argue you’re best with those little purr machines.  I know how much you love p...cats.”  You’re so busy getting caught up in being so close to this huge beautiful woman, and Goddess if she doesn’t seem bigger and more imposing in real life, that you miss the innuendo and almost-slip-up.  The minotaur, Kharya, gives her coworker a deadpan look before turning and smiling at you, her eyes crinkling, and you want to know what it feels like to pet over her soft pink nose and up the tawny fur of her snout.  The two of you are brought out of staring at each other by the snorting laugh of the human and her mumbled “useless lesbians” which just makes Kharya glare hard at the back of her head.

“Let me show you to the back room where we keep our fully grown cats.”  For the love of all that is holy that voice.  It was a bit higher than you expected from someone so huge, but it suited her.  Her long, snow-white eyelashes suited her, framing warm chocolate eyes.  Her smile is a little shy, she seems as flustered by her coworker as you were.  Your head barely reaches her chest, and you feel intimately aware of her muscles shifting as she walks near you.  Her smile is still soft as she opens the door and gestures for you to enter.  “Just take a seat on the floor and I’ll let a few of these guys out, we’ll see who comes over to take a look and go from there.”  

You take a chance to study her, up close this time, while she releases a few cats into the playroom.  She has two quite cute and dainty little horns curving up and around her ears, it somehow suits her better than hair could, and her strong shoulders stole your attention next as they flexed while she reached up for a particularly high crate.  You’re certainly smitten with her, but try to make sure your gaze is averted by the time she turns around, having opened about half a dozen little doors.  It’s easy as it turns out, because a sweet looking ball of fluff had come out of hiding sometime during your shameless ogling of the woman in front of you.  The black ball of fuzz mewed at you indignantly, pawing at your knee before headbutting and then nuzzling your leg.  

You giggle and scratch the little critter behind the ears, making it purr and drop like a sack of potatoes against your leg.  The giggle morphs into a laugh, matched by a chuckle from Kharya across from you, looking down at you with a fond tenderness in her gaze.  “That’s Sprite, he’s usually a bit of a recluse, but something seems to have gotten his attention.”  Her smile widens, “he isn’t the only one…”  Her gaze is full of open affection, and it makes your cheeks heat.  “You work in the building across from mine, yeah?  I’ve seen you around…”  Your face feels on fire, oh god what do you do?  You weren’t prepared for this, like at all.  You just nod mutely, gazing up at her, but something about your response seems to have been enough for her, since she just laughs and crosses the room to sit next to you, allowing one of the other cats curious enough to leave his enclosure to hop up into her lap and curl up.  You were jealous of that cat for a moment.

“I’ve...I’ve seen you around too.”  Your voice is quiet, but when you glance back up at her you can see she’s fixed you with an unreadable look.  Your fingers nervously skitter around on Sprite’s chin, making the fuzzbutt purr louder and lean further into your soft thigh.  “I’m happy to see you here today though, I’m always too chicken to talk to you.”  

She looks worried, her brow furrowed and her mouth twisted into what you’d guess is a sneer.  “You’re afraid of me?”  The loud peal of laughter from you at least smooths out her face, making her smile fondly down.

“No!  No, I’m not afraid of you.  But...beautiful women make me nervous…”  You’re feeling uncharacteristically bold, reaching your free hand over to touch her hand as you speak, feeling the soft downy fur on the back and trailing your fingers until you feel it fade into the calloused surface of her palm.  She brightens up at that, large brown eyes positively sparkling with delight as she turns her hand over beneath yours, lacing fingers together.  

Needless to say you went home that afternoon with Sprite, apparently short for Soot Sprite, the black void with big green eyes who decided to come flop on your leg.  You may have also left still holding the hand of the large minotaur woman Kharya while the two of you strolled over to the pet store, picking out all of the necessities considering you were starting from scratch.  Just as you were internally figuring out how to get all of this back Kharya offers to help you carry it home.  “Are you sure you don’t mind?  I’m sure I could just have them deliver most of this, I don’t want to bother you any more than I already have!”

She chuckles and nuzzles your cheek, her tongue just peeking out to lick a kiss on the side of your face making you blush.  “Never a bother, besides, what’s the use of all this muscle if I can’t even show off for a cute girl?”  This only makes your cheeks hotter, sputtering a little but agreeing.  

“It isn’t too far, maybe ten minutes, if you’re sure it isn’t a big deal?”  In reply she simply hefts up the large packages with the cat tree, litter, anything heavy really, and allows you to lead the way left carrying Sprite’s crate and a few bags of toys and treats.  The walk is beautiful, and the company only makes it better.  She probes you with questions about where you grew up, your family, what you do for work, and she tells you all about her childhood in the country, her job at the gym, her history as a competitive lifter.  Conversation and laughter are both flowing easily as you slow down in front of your building, biting your lip in consideration.  “Do you maybe want to come upstairs and help get Sprite settled in?”  

You try not to sound too hopeful, gazing up at her a little nervously.  Kharya’s answer is a wide smile and nod.  “Lead the way.”  You grin back at her and turn to key in your door code, holding the front door open for the large woman, who still has to duck to get through the door.  The elevator ride is full of giggles as you try to fit both of you and all the bags into the tiny box, thankful you seem to all come in under capacity.  Your front door opens with a key fob, and you’re thankful it can be read inside the pocket of your dress as you bump your hip up against the door and push down the handle with your elbow.

The ceilings are thankfully high, so while Kharya does have to duck to get inside once in she’s quite comfortable.  She sets down the packages, hardly seeming to have broken a sweat, and smiles down at you sweetly.  She grips your chin between her thumb and forefinger, leaning down to press your foreheads together in an intimate gesture, sharing breath and space.  Pulling back she swipes a kiss across your forehead with her tongue before releasing your face and moving back to the packages.  You stand there dazed for a moment before her voice breaks you out of your reverie.  “Why don’t you open Sprite’s cage and we’ll see if he wants to get out and explore.”  

Your cheeks are still hot, but it seems like you’re always blushing around the beautiful minotaur, so you just nod and go to open the carrier.  He’s out of there immediately, headbutting your face affectionately before gazing around and claiming a spot on a couch cushion near the window in the sun.  “Well...that seems easier than it should have been.”

Kharya glances over at you from where she’s opening the box with the cat tree in it, a full throated laugh coming out as she notices Sprite’s sleeping spot.  She’s full of mirth, her eyes watering with the force of her laughter.  “Oh, wow, yeah, cats usually don’t take like that.  It must be something about you…”  She winks at you flirtatiously, and you giggle and blow her a kiss back, making her eyes widen and then narrow in a playful smirk.

You spend a little while together just getting things set up for Sprite.  The litter box is in the bathroom, the circulating water dish is set up on the tile floor of the kitchen for easy cleanup in case of accidents, there are toys in every room and Kharya has set up the absolutely overly massive cat tower you bought because you wanted to make sure Sprite had enough things to climb.  You and Kharya are now sitting on the couch, Sprite having moved to a lounge chair in a spot much more preferable - where he could nap in the sun undisturbed by the movement of those other pesky creatures around the abode.

The two of you are drinking beer and relaxing after a job well done, Kharya has one massive arm thrown over the back of the couch and you can just feel the heat radiating off of her skin.  It’s quiet, but comfortable, and you’re thisclose to just leaning over to rest your head on her shoulder.  She clears her throat, making you peer up at her, the nervous look on her face simultaneously endearing and heartbreaking.  “So...I’ve kinda been hoping...that maybe you’d be willing to...um...y’know maybe you’d be willing...to go on a date with me?”  She’s studiously avoiding your eyes, although she still has her face turned towards you.  

You giggle and she almost looks crestfallen for a moment before you lean up and press a kiss on her cute pink nose.  “I was kinda hoping that maybe this could count as our first date?  I’d love to go on another…”  She grins and laughs, bringing her arm down from the back of the sofa and wrapping it around your shoulders firmly, pulling you into her side.  “How do you feel about tonight?  Maybe we could play with Sprite and order takeout?  There’s this killer Thai place near here I’ve been craving.”  You worry you might be moving this too fast, but damn if you want to stop this feeling, and you’d be lying to yourself if you said you wanted to wait.  Sure, you knew that’s what you should do, what logic would dictate, but you didn’t want to let go of her, afraid that if you did you’d realize this was only some fever dream.  That you’d wake up alone, in bed, no Sprite, no Kharya, just another day of the usual monotony.  

She perks up, leaning down to nuzzle the top of your head.  “Oh it’s like we’re on the same wavelength already!”  Her chuckle is deep, but still feminine, and it makes you just burrow further into her warm, strong side.  “I think this is the start of a beautiful relationship.”