#ALL you are telling me is that you don't believe sapphic relationships are on the same level as straight ones

[themoonking]

honestly, as a lesbian, the "this all-female religious group has taken a solemn vow of chastity, pledging to remain virgins all their lives... so they get around it by having sex with each other 😜" trope is a red flag when written by literally anyone other than a lesbian

#like disregard that viriginity itself is socially constructed in the first place #if your story operates in world where virginity is actually real and quantifiable #but also where a woman who has vowed to remain a virgin can have sex with other women w/o breaking those vows #ALL you are telling me is that you don't believe sapphic relationships are on the same level as straight ones #and that you don't believe sex between women is as important / serious / meaningful / et cetera as sex between a man and a woman #like what you are telling me is that you believe that f/f sex doesn't 'count' as 'real' sex #one of my dnd characters is a celibate-for-religious-reasons lesbian purely because im annoyed with this trope #i speak #i'm actually going to tag this as... #anti lore olympus #because i still can't get over athena and hestia being together

[elliesflower]

i saw you in a dream [7]

summary; it's winter break and that guitar has got to go.

chapter; 7/10 2.3k words

cw (per chapter); language, angst, TW: CAT >:(

an; hellaaaaurrrrrr i don't have much to say except ur all amazing and wonderful and thank u so much for loving this story so hard. i love u all more than words. (also sorry not much ellie in this chapter, next chap will be longer and most likely have smut teehee) ((also this isn't proof read so sorry if there's weird mistakes i'll go back nd fix later ok love u bye!!))

Your last interaction with Ellie had you feeling pretty defeated. You had thought that maybe you were getting somewhere—but now, with Cat in the picture, you were ready to give up.

“I’ll fucking kill her,” Dina threatened when you explained the whole story. You shook your head, laughing. “Seriously, she has no right to fuck with your emotions like that.”

“Dee, it’s fine. I wouldn’t call it ‘fucking with me,’ either. Relationships can be messy and break ups are even messier. You of all people should know that.”

“Don’t you fucking dare even mention that disgusting, vile creature,” she pretended to gag at the thought of her ex. All the verbal abuse she had to endure, you’re amazed she lasted so long with them in the first place. “But seriously. You guys had a vibe. That was fucked up of her to not even mention it. It obviously seemed like she was intentionally keeping it from you.”

You pursed your lips, looking down at your hands as you picked at your cuticles. 

“I don’t know…” you trailed off, shrugging your shoulders. You wanted to believe that Ellie wouldn’t do that to you. Realistically, you understood you barely knew her—the two of you had spent less than a full day together. Maybe it was silly to think she was letting you see her heart.

“No, no, don’t do that,” Dina pointed a finger at you accusingly. “Don’t do that hopeless romantic shit you always do. I’m telling you how it is.” 

“Okay, and maybe it is,” you agreed. “But—”

“Hello?! No ‘but’s!’ You need to forget about her. You don’t want to get tangled up in that mess, trust me,” she was speaking from experience, and you knew this. You wanted to believe Dina was right. Who would want to be caught up in lesbian ex-girlfriend drama? And yes, the lesbian part makes a difference. Perhaps it was just the adrenaline of a new crush—the yearning to be in a relationship, so strong you feel like you’d do anything, anything to be with that person, no matter what they’ve done, no matter what they say. Lust can be dangerous.

“Okay, okay,” you gave in. “I’ll leave it alone.”

Dina squinted at you curiously. She probably didn’t believe you, but it didn’t matter. You knew she had your back, always. She’d never do something you weren’t okay with, and she’d forgive you if you did go crawling back to Ellie. Which was still very much…up in the air. 

“That’s what I thought,” she said with a smirk, but it wasn’t very definitive.  

The next few days were…weird, to say the least. With Christmas quickly approaching, the amount of people on campus slowly thinned out—Dina included. She was heading east to be with her family for the holidays, which left you alone in your dorm for a few days. You spent most of the time aimlessly scrolling on your phone, confirming next term’s classes, and making last-minute holiday plans with your own family. It was all very…mundane. 

Which is a weird feeling; your outside life being so normal, while your brain was scrambling trying to make sense of your feelings about the whole Ellie situation. It had been over a week, and she hadn’t texted. Neither had you, but you weren’t sure what was left to say. You wanted to side with Dina, leave Ellie in the past and let Cat have her. 

But the other part of you—the hopeless, yearning sapphic—wanted to reach out. Every time you saw a short-haired redhead from the back, your heart rate increased. It was a little pathetic, if you were being honest, the way your heart fell when they’d turn around and it was not in fact Ellie coming to reconcile. It made you want to call her; want to see her; want to see if the two of you could really become something, after all; want to know what else spilled from her lips when she was high, and anything else she’d give you. 

It sure didn’t help that everytime you walked into your dorm you were stared down by the guitar you were really regretting buying instead of renting. Now that you didn’t have a….teacher, anymore, you were sure it’d just start collecting dust over there in the corner. 

“Fuck it,” you mumbled to yourself one day after you’d been staring at the case for far too long, deciding you were going to take it down to the student store and see what they’d offer you for it. 

The weather was bitterly cold, but it surprisingly wasn’t raining. You zipped your coat up all the way to your chin, readjusting the guitar strap over your shoulder as you walked across campus to the store. Today was the last day it’d be open before they closed for the holidays, so naturally the store was eerily empty, aside from the two students working behind the counter. 

You let your fingers trail across a few cute embroidered journals on your way up to the counter, where a very unenthusiastic student turned to greet you. 

“What can I help you with?” They asked flatly, resting their elbows on the wooden counter that separated the two of you. 

“Uh, I was hoping to see how much y’all would give me for this guitar,” you explained, hoisting the case up to the counter and unlocking it. Upon flipping the top, the worker gave out a low whistle of appreciation. 

“Has it ever even been used? It’s in perfect condition,” they said, grabbing the neck to pull it out and examine it. 

“Uh, just a handful of times…I took the class for one semester,” you explained, one hand subconsciously rising to rub the back of your neck sheepishly. 

“And you didn’t just rent one?” 

Okay, well damn. 

“Wasn’t thinking, I guess…” There’s nothing like a stranger confirming what you already knew to make you feel even worse about your initial purchase. They gave you an amused smile before leaning the guitar against the back of the counter.

“Give me a minute to run some numbers,” and luckily, they didn’t mention your stupid purchase again, and retreated to a computer. You leaned over the counter as well, pulling out your phone to mindlessly scroll. The electronic door chime sounded from behind you and the other employee shouted a greeting across the store. You didn’t pay it any attention until you heard a very distinct voice respond.

“Oh my gosh, it is freezing out there!” 

Your whole body tensed, your grip on your phone becoming tighter as she started to chatter away—of course her striking presence had the other employee out of their seat, smile plastered across their face as they made their way over to continue chatting with…her. 

Of fucking course. 

The whole point of coming here was to get this little part of Ellie out of your room—and now, an arguably bigger part of Ellie just came waltzing through the doors. You made it a point to keep looking at your phone, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of your attention. Even though she definitely had it, how could she not? Her voice was sickeningly sweet, even though it somehow made you feel sour, resonating over the quiet music playing in the store.  

“Elliott, you are such a riot!” She laughed from behind you. Her vernacular was straight out of a sixties romance movie, and you wondered briefly if that just added to her charm. You’d known girls like her—you know the ones who have to swear up and down that they’re not like other girls, when in reality, they are like clones roaming the earth. They all have the same cadence, the same attitude, the same god complex. Sometimes you wonder what it would be like to be so blissfully ignorant. 

“Alright,” the clerk said after another grating minute of you trying to remain undetected. “This is the best I can do for you.” They at least had the decency to look apologetic as they slid you a scribbled note. You blinked down at the number. 

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” you mumbled. The offer was less than half of what you originally paid for it. Not that you were expecting a miracle, but this was a little insulting. “You said it was in perfect condition…”

“I know,” they agreed, putting up their hands defensively. “There’s only so much I can do. I have to go by the school’s policies.” 

You frowned at the note for a moment, wishing nothing more than to go back in time and never sign up for that stupid guitar class. Or even if you did, you wished you’d never seen that stupid flier on that stupid tree on this stupid campus—maybe then you wouldn’t be stuck with your heart in your throat, choked up listening to Ellie’s ex-girlfriend slash roommate filling up the room with her stupidly charming personality. 

Wait a second, did she leave? Her voice disappeared, and the second clerk was returning back behind the desk. Maybe you should—

“Oh, c’mon,” she was peering over your shoulder in an instant, invading your space and making you flinch. Her floral perfume overwhelmed your nose, her black and silver bracelets tinkling as she examined the note on the counter. “We can do better than that, no?” Her arm was pressing your bicep, she was so close to you, you could hear her breathing and see her perfectly styled hair framing her sharp cheekbones. You were so taken aback by her boldness, by her invasiveness, you found yourself nodding.

She looked over at you, and her teeth were like pearls, shiny and probably not real. You just blinked at her, acutely aware that your expression was most likely not very kind. 

“Look, Cat,” the clerk started, and of course they knew her name. “You know I have to follow university protocols for these kinds of things.”

“C’mon, Dakota,” and yeah, of course she knew their name too. “There’s nothing you can do? For old times sake?” She leaned onto her elbows, resting her chin in her hands with a dopey look on her face. Good god, is this a joke? If so, it wasn’t very funny, because Dakota was now suppressing a grin, grabbing the paper off the counter before glancing at you briefly. 

“Let me see what I can do,” they smiled, returning to the computer. You wanted to sink into the floor and disappear. Not that it would make much of a difference, anyways. You were pretty much invisible until Cat showed up anyways. 

“Well, that’s more like it!” Cat grinned, crossing her arms and leaning a hip against the counter, facing you. “Nice to see you again, by the way.” An afterthought. 

You forced a smile back, your deeply embedded people-pleasing outweighing your disdain. 

“Cat,” you went straight for the formalities. You wanted to get out of here as quickly as humanly possible. “Likewise.”

“You left so quickly last week I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye!” She exclaimed, reaching out to grab your shoulder. It was like she was from another planet. “Ellie’s been talking about you.” You really hoped her otherworldliness didn’t give her the power of supersonic hearing, because she may have heard your heart fall into your stomach at the mention of Ellie’s name. But perhaps, she still did anyway, because she was cocking her head ever so slightly, crossing her arms over her chest again. 

“Oh, yeah I wasn’t…feeling great,” and it wasn’t a complete lie. You’re amazed you didn’t throw up all over the both of them the minute Cat got all handsy with Ellie. Cat still looked at you sideways, like she was waiting for you to respond to her comment about Ellie. No way she was talking about you with Cat. It had to be a ruse. You chewed at your bottom lip nervously, averting your gaze to fidget with your hands rather than be trapped. But she wasn’t giving up.

“Well, she’s been going on and on about how she was so happy she could help you pass your final,” she said, and half of her words were punctuated with a hand gesture. Your heart wa thrumming in your ears.  “She said you were a quick learner and so eager to play guitar. I just didn’t take you for a quitter, the way she talks about you!” 

Talks. Present tense. Fuck, she was good at this. 

“A quitter?” 

“Well, you’re pawning off your guitar,” she said matter-of-factly. You furrowed your brow, but quickly let it smooth out. 

“I never planned to play guitar long-term. Ellie knew that.” Or at least you thought she did. Cat was making it really fucking hard to tell what was real or not. Her smile faltered for a fraction of a second, before she was standing up straighter and shaking a few jet-black tendrils of hair from her face. 

“Well, then,” and she was no longer holding back. Her eyes very blatantly scanned you, up and down before she continued. “Let’s see what we can get you for this guitar then, yeah?” 

And as if on cue, Dakota returned to the counter. They walked straight to Cat as if you had never existed in the first place. 

“Alright, how’s this?” He slid the note over, and the number was significantly higher. You felt like a second class citizen. You were fuming—not that they would notice as they looked into each other’s eyes like they were Romeo and Juliet or something. How is it that Cat can weasel her way into everything that’s yours? 

Hah. As if Ellie was ever yours.

#ellie williams #ellie williams x reader #ellie x reader #ellie williams x you #ellie x you #ellie tlou #ellie tlou pt 2 #the last of us #the last of us pt 2

[let-me-be-or-perish]

sarah j maas cannot write.

she created this weird standars in fanatsy literature and in romance that if you're not a sexually active straight white woman you feel like you're back in the 1800 century.

the way than that female characters are treated both by the men, or should i say males? and the fandom is disgusting.

but i kind of get why the fandom treat them like that, she was the one that make them seen like that.having no agency at all.

and she pushes this old and dateted ideology of women that instead of use that as a lent to show how women till now have been seen and live is seen as a stadnard, something that should be idolized and wanted. when it's not.

for her a women can be only stong if she pick up a sword, fight and it's rude, but at the same time are so recessive and submessive to their male mates and ready to be nothing in orther to be with him

becuse of that women then, women who does not fit this mold are seen as less, they are not women.

maybe, her problem is that she doesn't understand women.

not every women has the same dreams as others,but that doesn't mean that are less important.

strenght can be found not only in physicality, but in being gentle and caring, intelligence, wanting to have a family, by blood or not.

for a woman wating to have children shouldn't be seen as dreadful as it seem, there is nothing wrong with that.

but again, her execution of it is really questionable, making you hate soemthing like that

her ideology is that for a woman, the only way to reach an happy ending is: findning a male, marry, have tons and tons of sex till you're pregnant and then becaming a shadow of yourself; becuse once you're pregnant and have a baby, you can't do anything greater anymore. leeaching to her male mate, making him look even greater

happiness doesn't always mean that, being coupled up and with children.

there, this enter a really harmful sterotype.

women who watns to live quiet lives, creating a family.

there are sapphics that don't end up with men, them and other women who doesn't what to have children, cannt have them, so they relay in other ways to create a family.

there are women who don't want to settle down, not wanting to be confined in a relationship, wheather is it out of sexuality or want.

and then aromatic, asexual and demisexual people that i assume she cannot even phantom the exsitence, same goes for non-binary and trans folks.

some, who are confident in themselves, that are sexually active, but not in relation of a relationship, but becasue they want and can do it. that then are not painted as monsters for it.

another thing that she doesn't understand is indipendency and emancipation. all of her female characters are strong, not because they have real strenght because we are told that they are, they never show us this "strenght", they never anything by themselves, wather is it powers or titles, or anything at all; because they're always given to them; usually by a man. so are they actually indipendent?

she only see white and straight, that well, as a fantasy autor is ridiculous.

for sarah, females are only used as a tool to make the males stand out, to make the males the greatest characters. she does not tell stories about the empowerment of women, she tells stories about males though females eyes.

now to the males.

they are the worst male characters ever.

toxic and abusive, but this behaviors are excused and cheered, not frown and seen as what they are.

this males do not posses any flawas, they're perfect. i get that they are faes but at least give them layers to feel like they are more humans, in the sense of tangilbe creatures that you'll really believe to exist, that are three dimensional and not only walking dicks. beautiful walking dicks with six packs.

give me a reason to believe on why they would act that way, why they would say those things, but don't find a way to excuse when they do soemthing wrong, let them be in the wrong and find a way to be redeemed if they need to be it.

let some males be less leaning on the toxinc masculinity, and more in the normal. there is no need to fit in this category to be seen as a men, a real one.

like there are many different ways to be a women there are differnt ways to be a men.

and the whole age gap being centuries? why? i trulty cannot grasp why someone would actually enjoy that. it's so weird, especially given that her characters don't really act like their given age but like horny teenagers, so why make them this old if she cannot understnd how to write immortlity and how someone taht age would act?

but then the dynamics, because she created such big gaps between them are so iffy and weird; and actually disgusting.

then, she really ableist. those things cannot and should not be cured with magic.

create a magic system/a world that value them more, that make them accepted.

the treatment given to pocs and queers is utterly disgusting and unecessary. the pocs all die and the queers are trown there only to get the "diversity" point.

again, everything could be solved, she has the possibility to. if only she did wanted that.

she is a rinomated author, she as the means and the possibility to make her books enjoyable for everyone.

she doesn't know how to write poc? she doen't know how to write queer people? yes, every attempt that she did was disastrous, but again the internet is there for everyone and she could always pay to have beta readers; again she has all the means to do it, the thing is, she doesn't want to.

and her books are put on a pedestol as peak literature, setting a standard. when in fact are actually less than mediocre.

but she could better, if she undertood her strengths and relayed on them.

if she wanted to write fantasy erotica, then she sould have directy went with that and not try to hide that as a fanatsy or romantasy, becuse they are not.

this is full on erotica.

to end all of this long ass thread.

manon was lesbian, and is a crime that she ended with a men. if you love them, then you're a lesbophobe. elide was there, and so were the 13.

chaol was gay, and should have ended up with dorian.

feyre sucks as protagonist, she does not posses a defined personality, changing solely for plot purposes. she doesn't have personal goals nor wants, everything is given her. is extremly annoying becuse extremly entitled, making everything about her; not seeing that other were suffering too, at times directly from her hands too. she was supposed to be pragmatic, showing a different kind of intelligence, but she showed the lack of any type of it. getting excused for things that shouldn't be excused. acting all highty and mighty when she is nothing, she has nothing and know nothing. she's probably one of the worst female characters written, being extremly flimsy and insufrable and annoying.

nesta, didn't deserve to be treated like that, she was wrong, yes, but all of those who pointed their finger at her did so much worse, and she at the end was only harming herself not others. and she was suffering.

elaine too was suffering, but in all of that she stayed strong for herslef and for others. she screamed in silence. she was ready to give an hand but everyone pushed that way. you can reach to someone only if they want to be reached. she could do great things if they only let her. even if in pain and suffering she was ready to help, putting others needs before her own, but you cannot resent her for wanting to keep a tiny part, to be even for a bit selfish.

feyre and rhys sucks at rulers, for her it makes sense, she learned how to read two months ago, she is no position to rule, especially from a title that she doesn't deserve. while for him, well, well.

tamlin didn't deserve the treatment he recived by both everyone and the fandom. he was bad, becuse sjm made him bad. making him out of character. but that's a normal thing for her, so it doesn't matter. if you hate him, you cannot stand him, that you should feel the same about rhys and feyre, especially becuse they were so much worse then he was.

lastly, elain should have actually ended with rhys, he would have changed for her, she would have understood him, but she wouldn't have sit there letting him do things that she didn't approved of. overall they would have been much better, he would helped her coming out of her shell and she would have toned him down. they would have actually bulit a relationship by comuticating, bulding trust and understanding; not relaying solely on flirting and sex, and calling that a relationship. she would have respected the fact that he was tramautized and would have waited for him, being here to listen, not rushing him in physical things. he would have learned to appriacte more tiny things and gestures; she would have learn to ask more that what was given her, what she deserves.

azriel and nesta should have ended respectivly with a man and a woman, someone that could have understood and appriciated them. cassain should have ended alone and ferye should have died in the first book.

#sjm #sjm books #sarah j maas #sjmaas #anti sjm #sjm critical #acotar #a court of thorns and roses #acomaf #a court of mist and fury #acowar #a court of wings and ruin #acofas #a court of frost and starlight #acosf #a court of silver flames #anti feysand #anti feyre #pro elain #pro nesta #anti nessian #we can do better #not an opinion #this is the truth #im right #i make the rules #tog #throne of glass #anti manorian #manon is lesbian

[leftoverenvy]

Tastes Like Sugar (ch. 31)

Summary: India Mae, or Indi, is a music major, struggling to pay bills, tuition, work, and make good grades.  Emily Prentiss is a BAU profiler, as well as a DC socialite thanks to her huge family fortune.  The two enter into a mutually beneficial arrangement: Emily will pay for Indi's school if Indi accompanies Emily to her social functions for a few months, posing as her girlfriend.  As weeks go by, the lines between their arrangement and their true feelings start to blur.  But money can't buy love, right?

Pairing: India Mae Banks x Emily Prentiss; OC x Emily Prentiss

Warnings: smut; sugar baby relationships; age gap (16 years - but all over 18)

Word Count: 2.3 k

Read on Wattpad | Ao3 | Previous Chapters

Taglist: @ssa-sapphic 🧸; @5raysofsunshine 🌮; @reidselle 🦭; @swiftfiles 🐝💚; @gaelic-symphony 🎻 ; @sadgirlml 🌻💌; @hotchs-bitch🦆 ; @multiverse-mxdness ; @madelineleong ; @scorpsik 🎨

Chapter 31 - Sweet Harmony

Emily's POV: We raced home, her in the Audi, me hot on her trail in my own car.  I hated to separate, but I understood the necessity of having both cars at home.  I had started to lead the way home, but Indi lagged behind me, uncomfortable driving so fast.  My hands tightened and wound around the wheel, desperate to be home and have her back in my arms.  "Come on, Indi," I whispered to myself, willing her to drive faster.  Hadn't I waited long enough for her to be back home?

When we finally arrived home, I smiled at her pulling her new car into her spot of the garage.  I parked as quickly as possible, flying around the back of my car to pull her door open for her.  I kissed her deeply, pulling her bag from her hand.  "Welcome home," I whispered against her lips.

She smiled up at me, cupping my cheek.  "I'm sorry I left in the first place."  Her words sobered me, and she could see my eyes tighten at the memory of her fleeing.  "Should we talk about this more?"

"I think that's a good idea."  I placed a quick kiss to her forehead and then picked up her bag to carry it inside for her.  I grabbed her hand, "Come on you."

"Should we make cocoa?" she asked softly.

"It's August…"

She shrank, shoulders hunching slightly, eyes reticent.  Softly, "My mom always made cocoa for big talks."

I warmed at the thought of her sharing a family tradition with me; Indi was always so tentative sharing things about her family.  "Of course we can, sweetheart."

Silently, we made cocoa together, unsure what to say.  I didn't know if we could start talking about what happened before the cocoa was done.  Previously, our silences had never been awkward – time with Indi was always peaceful.  But now, with this big thing looming over our heads, I wasn't sure where we stood.  I had been certain that her kissing me and telling me she loved me back had meant that she was sorry for running again, but the air around us was tense.  Never before had I felt so uneasy in her presence.  I felt us approaching a precipice, but what came next, I wasn't sure.

We moved into the living room, settling into opposite ends of the couch.

"I'm sorry," she started. 

I promised myself I wasn't going to brush off how her leaving affected me.  I fought back the urge to sweep it under the rug and bottle up my feelings.  Our future was too important to me to hide how this impacted me.  I tried to quiet the part of me screaming to throw walls back up and shut her out.  I swallowed the knee-jerk response it's okay.  Because it wasn't. India's go-to was to just run when things got tough.  "Why'd you run?" 

She cringed slightly, and took a sip of her cocoa as she thought about her response.  "I don't know," she said softly.  "I'm struggling to believe I'm worth this."  I opened my mouth to tell her she was worth everything in the universe, but she interrupted me.  "And don't say it's just money."

"It is though, Indi.  Let me just put this in perspective for you.  What you give me, I can't buy.  You are priceless, India Mae.  Money means nothing to me because I'll always be financially secure.  I have a multi-million dollar trust fund, millions in liquid assets, and an additional few million in stocks and real estate."  Her eyes widened impossibly large. 

Before she had time to respond, I continued.  "Money can't buy what I want, Indi.  I thought I could try when Rossi signed me up for SugarBook, but you are priceless to me, baby."  I swallowed thickly, again fighting the urge to board up my windows and shut down.  My heart beat wildly in my chest at the vulnerability I was about to show.  Near whispering I said, "Money doesn't mean anything when all you want is love.  And you love me so wholly." 

I grabbed her mug, setting it on the coffee table.  Taking her hands in mine, I blinked tears back, embarrassed at how quickly our conversation turned.  "No one has ever accepted me just as I am.  Growing up, I never felt like I was enough for my family.  I never was anywhere long enough to make a meaningful connection.  And as I got older, I stopped trying to make friends.  Because it hurt so bad to pick up and move again and never see them again.

"And then when I was in the CIA, I wasn't allowed to be me.  And now," I swallowed again, trying to compose myself.  "You love me, Indi.  I never hid who I was with you.  And you won't ever know how valuable that is to me."

Her thumb softly wiped at my tears, endless tenderness and sympathy in her eyes.  And finally, understanding.  "Money doesn't mean anything to me, not when I have the most precious thing I could ask for," I said, squeezing her hand.  "But baby you deserve anything your heart desires.  It's nothing for me to buy you what you deserve.  I have the means to buy you whatever you want."

"I love you so much."  My heart swelled again at her admission.  I wasn't sure the excitement of her saying it would ever lessen.  "I just couldn't fathom why you love me," she admitted.  "I thought I had nothing to give you."  I shook my head, but let her continue.  "I'm not worldly like you.  I'm not educated like you.  I come from nothing.  But to hear you say that you love me because I'm enough?  I'm just-"  She shook her head in disbelief.  "Well, I just don't know what to say.  It sounds too good to be true."

She took a steadying breath and looked me deep in the eyes.  Unwaveringly, she said, "And to know that all you want is that love and support?  Well it's all I want too.  You, as you are, are it for me, Em.  I never thought I could love someone so much."

"What was it that pushed you over?  I thought we had worked this out.  When we were in Florida?  Or even way back in March or April.  Remember?  We were out to lunch at that cafe you love?  I told you how much you deserve to be spoiled and you seemed to accept it then.  What happened?"

"I don't know, Emily," she said resigned.  "Wait!" she interrupted her own train of thought.  "I remember that day in the cafe.  Why do you?"

I paused, unsure if I should share how deeply I loved her from the start.  "That's when I knew you were it for me.  That's when I knew I wouldn't want anyone else."

A slow smile spread over her face.  "I remember it for the same reason, babe."

My heart warmed that she had known so early, as well.  "I thought we settled it then: you deserve to be spoiled.  I just want you to have everything you want." 

"All I want is you," she admitted softly.

"Then stop running from this, from us," I begged.  "You break my heart every time you leave," I confessed. 

Guilt flashed in her eyes.  "Yesterday, I thought if I were the one to leave, it would be easier."  I knew that feeling well.  Every time I had broken things off with a girlfriend, I had thought similarly.  Before Indi, I had never struggled to move on.  Before yesterday, the thought of moving on had never been unbearable.  "I thought if I were the one to leave, it would hurt less than when you finally realized you can do better than me."

"I've been there, Indi.  You don't fake a relationship with an arms dealer without gaining a few scars.  But you have to trust me, baby.  I love you."  I grabbed her face, brushing her wispy hairs back.  "There is no one better than you.  Please trust me.  Trust us."

"I've learned my lesson, Em.  When I was lying all alone in my bed, wishing I was in your arms."  Her brows creased at the memory.  "It hurt just as bad to be the one leaving, because it didn't matter that I left.  All that mattered was that I wasn't with you."

My heart swelled, because, miraculously, she really did feel the same way.  All this time I thought I needed to buy her time to get her to stay.  Starting this relationship as a financial obligation hadn't helped my thinking that she was only here for what I could give her materially.  But hearing her say that all she wanted was my love, me, had me reeling.  All these months I wondered in the back of my mind what I could offer her besides money, and I always came up short.  But to hear that we were enough as we were brought tears to my eyes.

"I guess I couldn't help but feel the same as you did."  I heard her gasp softly in shock.  "What could a young woman who has everything ahead of her want with me?  I mean" - I pulled my hands back to pick at my nails - "I'm a workaholic in a job that poses great risk.  I'm old, parts of me sag more than they used to, I'm graying, I-"

"Stop," she commanded.  "You're gorgeous," she whispered reverently.  She pulled my hands apart, soothing the sting from where I had picked at my cuticle.  "I've never been attracted to anyone the way I am you.  Please do not speak about yourself as if you aren't worthy of my love just because you're older than me."

And that's when it clicked.  What this all boiled down to was that neither of us felt we deserved the other's love.  That's what had to change here.

"It's hard for me to believe you could want me like that."

She smirked.  "Don't I make how much I want you abundantly clear?" 

I chuckled, always in awe of her libido.  "Yes, I guess we're not lacking in that department, are we?"

"I'd say not," she agreed.  "Though, I would be happy to show you how much I want you more frequently."  She pushed me back against the couch, pretending like she was about to pounce.  Instead she kissed me chastely and pushed my arm out, making room for herself in the crook of my arm.  I scooted down the couch and pulled her into my side, settling her head on my chest.  I kissed her forehead, grateful for her to be back here.  "Just moving forward, we need to believe in each other."

"I will.  I do," she amended, squeezing my hip.

I let her words linger around us, finally feeling at peace again.  "Me too."  I ran my fingers over her shoulder soothing myself at the repetitive movement.  "Where do you see us in a year?" I mused.

"Exactly as we are.  Exactly like this," she responded, twining her legs with mine.  "Are we okay, then?" she asked timidly.  "Do you see me in your future?"

"Angel, you are my future. I love you."  I tipped her head up and kissed her softly, the angle slightly awkward.

"I love you too," she whispered, settling back into my arms.

"And where do you see yourself in a year?  What do you want to do after graduation?"

"I don't know."  She sighed as I started trailing my fingers down her back.  "I've never had the luxury of being able to plan ahead.  Maybe I'll try to find a teaching position…"

"I asked what do you want to do?" 

She hummed, lost in thought.  "I don't know…with you now, there are so many more options."  She paused and then said, "Er, I'm not trying to take advantage of you.  I just mean because of you, I've been able to save a lot more than I thought possible, and I feel like I don't have to take any teaching job that comes my way."

I chuckled softly.  Maybe we had made some progress today, but my Indi would still be hesitant about money.  "Dream world – you can do anything.  Every job is open to you.  What do you want to do?"

Without hesitation, she said, "I want to play for the DC symphony."  I smiled, wheels already turning about who to contact to get her an audition.

"I think that's a perfect job for you."

"I think so, too," she said, a smile in her voice.

"Speaking of jobs," I said through a yawn, "Penelope starts her first day as the BAU's technical analyst at the end of this case." 

"She got it?!" she asked excitedly.

"Mmhm," I hummed.

She exclaimed, "That bitch!  She didn't tell me!"

"That she may be off the hook for.  I'm not sure she knows yet; I think Hotch is going to tell her when they get back from this case."

This time it was her turn to yawn.  "Okaaaaay," she sighed.  Her yawn was contagious, and my eyes watered from my second yawn – my sleepless night catching up with me. 

"I didn't sleep much last night," she admitted softly.  "Can we just rest this evening?"

I kissed her on the forehead.  Nothing sounded better.  "Of course, angel.  We can do whatever you'd like."

Indi snuggled deeper into my arms, her eyes drifting closed.  "I love you," she murmured, and I drifted off with a soft smile and full heart.

- - -

a/n: aren't they just the cutest?

#🌬 fics #tastes like sugar #emily prentiss #emily prentiss x oc #emily prentiss fanfiction #emily prentiss smut #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds au #wlw writing

[tabithatwo]

Do you believe Jackie and Shauna have a codependent relationship in canon? and if you do, who do you think is who in the relationship ("giver"/"taker") dynamic?

i think this is a very interesting and difficult question to parse out, mostly due to the fact that they're teenagers when we see them together. being 18/19 really does mean heightened emotion, less frontal lobe development and therefore less impulse control and ability to moderate our interactions with others, more hormonal imbalance, just a perfect storm of codependency. i say this lovingly, as a lesbian who experienced what its like to be a teenage lesbian and did her fair share of insane shit lol, the type of crazy you can attain as a teenage sapphic is fucking unmatched. there is this deep and unyielding attachment that forms between girls in general at that age and when you add romantic love that spark of crazy easily transitions to a wildfire. i think so many people see themselves in jackie and shauna because it is a more shared experience than we like to admit and the show fucking nails it.

when you're in it, you think that you're the only one feeling that sort of intense obsessive consuming need for a person. often you don't see that the other person wants and needs you just as deeply, because we all do our best to hide what we know isn't acceptable. and its true. that sort of desperation isn't healthy at all. we should all strive to be more comfortable in ourselves and to stop putting all our happiness (not just happiness really, because when you're consumed by someone like that every emotion hinges on them) into external factors, especially one person. but learning to do that is a process. we don't come out ready to do that. it takes time and development and independence that you can't achieve when you're that young.

then we get older and we're embarrassed when we look back on those behaviors. we shove them down and pretend they didn't happen as best we can and we definitely avoid talking about them with other people. i can't tell you the amount of times a rush of just total abject horror at how obsessed i was with my high school best friend, turned homoerotic nightmare, turned girlfriend, turned ex hit me in my mid twenties. like your brain starts kicking in and you just go GOOD GOD!!! what was i THINKING??? but more years pass and time makes the sting of things lighter and now i can talk to her and sometimes (sometimes!) we can broach the really fucking deranged things we did and thought and its weirdly healing and horrifying all at once.

now, idk if you're still with me because that was a long intro that didn't even touch on the topic yet, but i promise i'm getting somewhere:

i think that jackie and shauna are fully and completely dependent on each other. i don't think that there is one giver and one taker. i think that they are a beautiful and tragic example of the crazy obsessive entangled love that happens between young sapphics. for me, watching them and discussing them and writing them is so freeing, because it allows me to actually face the harsh realities of unhealthy dependence.

neither of them could ever be whole without the other. and i don't mean that in a romantic hyperbole-fueled manner. i mean that in a truly horrifying way. i mean that to them functionally, they are girls who have body parts as real as any other, that are unattached from their nervous system. jackie's arms are shauna's arms and shauna's arms are jackie's arms. each girl has two hands that touch and do and create and destroy, without her brain giving the okay. each girl has to watch, as an extension of herself does something that she would never ever allow. when they're apart, when they're fighting and hurting, when shauna goes to sleep in the attic, its as though their lungs and their hearts are in another room.

who gives and who takes is hard to answer in specifics, though the simple answer is both for each. but the best way i can put it is that jackie gives more and more in the tangible real world. she tries to anticipate shauna's every need. she gives her the last bite of food. she gives her everything she has and then some, because jackie's biggest fear is shauna taking a seam-cutter to all the parts of them that are sewn together and becoming a separate entity. jackie squeezes shauna tight in her hands and shauna gives more pieces of her body and soul to their shared cache than she wants to.

shauna has an image of freeing herself from the dependency, but she doesn't like to reckon with herself and she doesn't like to see all the places that she expects jackie to be an extension of herself. so when she tries to make space, shauna doesn't even realize that she's not separating them at all. she's touching where jackie touches and kissing where jackie kisses. she is trying to be jackie, but not truly in a jealously way. not in a way that undermines their romantic love. shauna is trying to be jackie in a way that intensifies their dependence, because even if consciously shauna is aging and trying to forge a path for herself with a new school and a new life, like most of us tend to try and do at that age, shauna is still subconsciously trying to fuse them into one being.

and when jackie dies, shauna absorbs her. because she can be both. she's been practicing for this her entire life.

#shauna shipman #jackie taylor #jackie x shauna #shauna x jackie #jackieshauna #shaunajackie #yellowjackets #asks answered #yellowjackets meta

[strangertheories]

the biggest reason I don't rlly like romantic ronance is because I don't really ship nancy with anyone - I am a firm believer in Single Nancy Supremacy! I think that the two romantic relationships we see her have (with steve and with jonathan) both struggled because of her grief in relation to barb - its much clearer with her relationship to steve as it literally breaks down as a result of her grief and guilt and that idea of faking happiness, and I think that may also be the case with her relationship with jonathan as well, and we know that she's been questioning things about the relationship and hiding that she feels unfulfilled, though in her eyes she feels like she wants steve, but i think she just remembers how easy things were with steve before all the upside-downy stuff and wants to go back to how things were back then. I feel as though she struggles in those relationships because the type of companionship she is searching for is the easy, comfortable, platonic love and closeness she had with barb back then, and its clearly a huge part of her character arc, since losing barb is what caused her to become actively involved in all the upside-downy stuff and piqued her interest in journalism through her work with murray (alongside her clear desire for solving mysteries and the like). what nancy needs right now isn't a romantic relationship, but a platonic female friendship, a connection that is not fueled by anything sexual at all - hence my stance as a Platonic ronance truther!! we already see the closeness and trust the two of them have with each other as they scheme to break in to see victor creel and as they work together later on, and I think that kind of platonic connection between two women will be wonderful for the both of them, and robin as well deserves a platonic friendship that isn't just with the guy people keep thinking she's in love with. I really hope the show does take it that way, especially since platonic relationships have played such a key role throughout the show (the party's dedication to each other (excluding byler and their romantic love for each other but thats a whole other thing), dustin's relationships with steve and eddie, platonic stobin ofc, jonathan and argyles friendship (this one is so important to me as well as robin and nancy because of how dedicated they are to each other), and especially the friendship between el and max (I could write a whole nother essay about that tbh)) and I think it would be a wonderful ending for both robin and nancy to find that friendship with each other!!

This is completely fair and valid, plus a good analysis. For me personally, I prefer Ronance to single Nancy. Firstly because I just like their dynamic being 80s sapphic enemies/rivals to lovers. Secondly, I think Robin dating an established character is easier writing wise cause the show adds too many people and has less time to flesh out Vickie because of it. However, I also like it because of Nancy's character arc.

I think her character is very male centric and the writers seem to abandon her life goals to push her into the box of being Steve's suburban wife or in other words, her canon worst nightmare. Despite being the badass feminist character, she feels so focused around men and Steve and it's really odd to me. Especially how weirdly confrontational she was to Robin because she assumed she was dating Steve. They broke up two years ago and Nancy never even loved him, it's so odd.

Anyways to circle back to my point, I like the idea of Nancy's ending not being her settling down with Steve. I'm very anti-St4ncy if you can't tell. I'm less opposed to Jonathan and Nancy but even then, she's still at risk of falling into her nightmare with him. I think this is part of the reason why single Nancy is good and canon wise, I think that's her best outcome.

However, Nancy says right from the start that she wants to truly rebel. She dates Steve as an act of rebellion but because she's rebelling in the way everyone else does, it's ultimately a way for her to safely fit in and tell herself she's doing something radical as Jonathan points out. She hides her true feelings because whilst she knows she won't be satisfied by the life she's heading towards, she's scared to do anything otherwise.

I think 80s badass sapphic feminist Nancy dating a woman would both act as her embracing her true feelings and rebelling away from the trap of being a suburban housewife that her mother fell into. Single Nancy can work for that too, but I think having Nancy canonically like girls would perfectly fit into her framework of actually truly rebelling against expectations instead of seeking safety in a boy she tried to force herself to love.

I think these two opinions can coexist but that's just why I think romantic Ronance is great for Nancy. I do agree that platonic relationships would be good for her, but I also think that this relationship romantically would work with her character arc too. Thanks for the ask!

#ronance #anti jancy #anti stancy #nancy wheeler

[carnation-damnation]

I LOVE your transfem Amy art! Would you mind sharing some of those transfem ideas you were rotating in your mind?

AUGHHHHH I'D LOVE TOOO!!

ummm lets go down the line haha. Only gonna talk abt ames rouge and metal because they're the only ones I've got in my brain atm. But rest assured if I had more brain cells I'd ramble abt Blaze too bc I also hc her as trans

Ames (She/Her, trans lesbian) - I think Amy presents p stealth! I think she knew she was trans from a young age and she's been presenting femininely since she was very very little. I made a post joking abt silly gender differences in sth (no back quills, small nose, etc) and I headcanon that those traits come from Amy being half-echidna so its like. ajdjsndnd gender win. The traits you were born with also coincide with hedgehog mobian gender binary??JFJSNFNN

I don't think Amy keeps her trans identity a complete secret, she loves being trans and she's proud of how she's tested fate and made her life her own, but I also think it does play a role in how she navigates her personal/romantic relationships (comphet to trans lesbian is what I was thinking of?)

Rouge: (She/Her, transfem lesbian also) - I talked abt Rouge and gave her a silly little backstory in that one post but I'll go over it again a little here: I think Rouge grew up pretty isolated in a small village with her family. She felt very trapped in the ideas that she felt like she had to follow the footsteps in. She felt like she was a side character in her own life because she's always had to ask for permission and think of the family's sleezy gem store/pawn shop before her own wants and needs. Landing that government job somehow was her ticket to finally spreading her wings and flying freeeee baby. She knew there was somth about herself and the way she dressed, talked and looked that didn't quite fit her, and although she didn't have a word for it, she assumed a new identity while working for G.U.N. and went like. full throttle on her transition. She didn't want anybody from her old village to recognize her. She's not listening to their complaints and desires anymore. She lives for herself, now. I think she has some trust issues relating to her past experiences which makes her hold onto Shadow and Omega so closely, and something about them also being queer brings them even closer to her. Can you tell Rouge has been rotating the fastest in my head

Metal - (It/She/They, sapphic demi-girl) -Metal is a fucking egg please saVE HERRRR. LISTEN OK. I don't have any evidence I don't got shit I just know we gotta get Metal outta there because she is an uncracked egg. Is eggman actively against the prospect of Metal having a differing gender identity? No. But Eggman is opposed to Metal having Opinions so. Metal has spent so long under the control of Eggman who they DO!! love, I believe. I think Metal Sonic and Sage are the only people that love Eggman and Eggman does nottt see Metal as his child as much as Metal does. And it makes me fucking bonks, dog. She thinks she's comfortable and fine where she is because that's all she knows. But she sees Amy and she yearns for something that she doesn't have the ability to describe...An emptiness that Metal doesn't know how to fill. Someone show this robot the joys of spinning for the first time in a flowy skirt PLEASEEE I think it'd do wonders for her. Go listen to bridget from guilty gear strives theme rn

#long post #No read more because this is required reading for my art /j #trans amy rose #trans rouge the bat #trans metal sonic #trans

[checkoutmybookshelf]

I'm Sorry, You Packed HOW MANY Tropes into that Hoopskirt???

So...I'd be lying if I tried to tell you that I picked up this book for any reason other than the big poofy 1850s ball gowns on the cover. I'd also be lying if I said I had any expectations beyond cute, fluffy, wlw romance.

Then we got stuck into the book and suddenly I was like...I'm sorry, this cover did not prepare me for the ANGST and GROUNDING and WEIGHT and POLITICAL DIMENSIONS of this book. Not to mention that it manages to pack a metric ton of tropes into not that long a book, including but not limited to second-chance romance, parent trapping, friends-to-lovers, and the power of friendship. AND it's LGBTQIA+. I was not expecting to cry over this book, but here we are. Let's talk Don't Want You Like a Best Friend.

This is your SPOILER WARNING because I'm running on three hours of sleep and don't believe for a second that I'm not going to be randomly tossing SPOILERS all over the place. Be warned.

Oh, and this is a CONTENT WARNING for marital and domestic abuse. For both this book and this review.

Gwen is a debutante in her fourth season with no interest in marriage and the biggest rake of a father in London.

Beth is a first-season debutante on a mission to marry well, because her cousin is repossessing her and her mother's house at the end of the season and they will be homeless and penniless.

So naturally they plot to get Gwen's dad and Beth's mom together.

This is not as wild as it seems, because before Lady Demeroven's father forced her to marry Beth's dad (who is both an abusive asshole and thankfully super dead), she was deeply in love with Dashiell Havenfort. When she broke his heart. Lord Havenfort went off, got drunk, partied, and then there was Gwen--who he raised as a single dad because Gwen's mother died in childbirth.

So we have that little powder keg to begin the story, and it's set against the increasingly critical backdrop of Havenfort and the father of the aggressively vanilla boy who decides to marry Beth (yeah, they have names, I don't care. It's vanilla boy and his dickhead dad from here on in) going toe-to-toe in parliament trying to pass and prevent, respectively, a piece of legislation that would allow women to divorce their husbands for reasons other than being beaten bloody. This really underscores the situation that Beth and her mother had been in, and the one that they might be in again if Beth goes through with the marriage to vanilla boy. Thankfully she doesn't, but honestly, the number of men just waltzing around in this world going "women are property and I should be able to beat the snot out of them if I want to" was really depressing. And that depression just intensified when Beth and Gwen finally realized they wanted a sapphic relationship with each other.

The patriarchy sucks, guys. So hard.

Watching Beth and Gwen try to parent trap their respective parents was a lot of fun, and once they realized what they wanted, their relationship was also fun. That's not to say that the book was perfectly executed, though. The first half of the book is slooooooooooooow. Like slow enough that I considered DNFing the book. I'm glad I didn't, because once the "Oh, I'm sapphic" realization hits, the angst of being sapphic in a patriarchal world where marriage was women's only real hope of financial stability hit true and hard. Trying to find another way to live in a world that didn't want you to exist was really interesting.

The other thing that I wasn't a fan of--and your mileage may vary--was that while the setting and politics and fashion were extremely well-grounded in the 1850s, the character dialogue and language is jarringly modern. At one point, someone said to "put that energy out to the world" and I just had to put the book down for a minute and take a few deep breaths. So depending on how real-feeling you want the history part of this historical romance to feel, your mileage may vary with the language.

Now, the thing that I truly loved about this book is that is faces abuse and its effects full in the face, and refuses to continue a cycle of abuse. The MCA passes, and then women help each other recover and get out of abusive situations. Lady Demeroven's first marriage was abusive and violent, although she hid the extent of it from Beth. She tries to ensure that Beth ends up with a man who will be kind to her, and vanilla boy might have been...but his dickhead dad wouldn't have been, and dickhead dad might have influenced vanilla boy to become abusive. Lady Demeroven ultimately refuses to allow either the cycle of accepting abuse or the cycle of abusive men teaching their sons that abuse is acceptable or *shudder* somehow their marital duty. Lady Demeroven goes on a whole journey to heal her own trauma enough to stop the cycle and protect Beth, and she does. She shuts that shit down, and they walk.

Like the door slam in the Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the door slamming behind Lady and Beth Demeroven heralds freedom and happiness. It is the end of a cycle that devalues women and that tells other women that they can make a different choice. And this book does it gently, acknowledging that doing so is HARD, and it takes courage and help and support. Honestly, I was SO HERE for Lady Demeroven's journey and her finding happiness with Dashiell at the end of the book.

Overall, this was not a perfect book. There were pacing and execution issues, and Lady Demeroven and Lord Havenfort kind of steal the show from their daughters' romance. But this book had THINGS TO SAY, and those things are important to say, and perhaps say even more loudly now in 2024 than they were back in the Victorian era. So this book was fun, it had clear things to say, and honestly it was a fun read.

#don't want you like a best friend #wlw romance #historical romance #sapphic romance #queer romance #books and reading #books #books and novels #books & libraries #book recommendations

[pinkorchidsinspring]

I Can See You

Let's do some lyric analysis, shall we? Just for funsies, because there's absolutely no way this song has any references to queerness at all... coughs in coding girlie in the music video* (Stanzas of lyrics are labeled for reference when repeated.)

1)You brush past me in the hallway And you don't think I, I, I can see ya, do ya? I've been watchin' you for ages

Okay, so Taylor gives away right away that she has been "watchin'"/paying attention to the person this song is about. (Let's call her Cece for right now just so I don't have to keep referring to her as "the person this song is about" and so there's no arguing in the comments about who the muse of this song is.)

1)And I spend my time tryin' not to feel it

Okay maybe hypothetically if Cece is actually a Collin, maybe she doesn't want to accept that she has feelings for him because he's a mean guy, or her friends just don't like him. But if Cece is a Cece, Taylor was probably experiencing some internalized homophobia, or general fear of being interested in a girl because she doesn't want to be gay. She simply doesn't want to make her life as a country music star (at the time) any harder. No matter how much she's interested in Cece.

2)But what would you do if I went to touch you now? What would you do if they never found us out? What would you do if we never made a sound?

In this series of seemingly frantic questions, Taylor is asking Cece or Collin if they would go through with whatever (-possibly fleeting) secret relationship Taylor wants to pursue. She's asking if they would willingly hide with her, if they would willingly kiss her, and never tell.

3)'Cause I can see you waitin' down the hall from me And I could see you up against the wall with me And what would you do? Baby, if you only knew That I can see you

First off, Taylor Alison Swift, this is very Dress, False God, Gorgeous, Lover (feat. Shawn Mendes), so very sapphic what-if-I-worship-you-right-here horny of you. Anyways, in this excerpt, she's again asking if they would turn her away, or if they would follow through with it. However, by saying that she can "see" them, she alludes that she knows what their answer would be in "seeing" them. She portrays Cece or Collin as being interested in return.

4)And we kept everything professional But something's changed, it's somethin' I, I like

Here Taylor alludes that at some point she worked with this person, and something in their relationship is changing, specifically something to do with this person "brushing past her in the hallway", and "waiting down the hallway from her", away from prying eyes. In other words, this relationship is seemingly becoming anything but professional and platonic.

4)They keep watchful eyes on us So it's best that we move fast and keep quiet

By "They", I choose to interpret they as her management/PR team, because who else would want to make sure they know who Taylor is involved with and when? Why would she have to hide it from her friends and family if it was just bad boy Collin? After all her PR team has no problems linking her to problematic men like John Mayonaise, Jake Jingleballs, and Calvin Harasser. It seems like she's hiding this relationship from her management (and possibly her friends and family if they don't know she likes women yet, as she seems to be unsettled by it herself at this point in time.). So Taylor is detailing how if she has a relationship with Cece it has to be only for brief instances, and no one can know.

4)You won't believe half the things I see inside my head Wait 'til you see half the things that haven't happened yet

This is just very um... sapphic what-if-I-worship-you-right-here horny of her once again, so moving on...

5)Stanza 2 is repeated to again ask her partner if they will willingly do this with her. 6)Stanza 3 is then repeated and added to it is: That I could see you throw your jacket on the floor I could see you, make me want you even more What would you do? Baby, if you only knew That I can see you

With the Jacket being thrown on the floor, Cece or Collin obviously show interest back in a very obvious way. This blatant interest makes Taylor want them even more, and again Taylor asks Cece or Collin if they would go through it.

7)I can see you in your suit and your necktie

I like to think she added this line recently... I can't find any photos of Dianna, or Emily in a suit... but Karlie…

7)Passed me a note saying, "Meet me tonight" Then we kissed and you know I won't ever tell, yeah

This excerpt only further proves that Taylor's partner isn't hiding. Taylor is, there's some reason why Taylor's partner can be assured that she won't ever tell anyone. But yeah sure maybe bad boy Collin wants her to keep their relationship a secret.

7)And I could see you being my addiction You can see me as a secret mission Hideaway and I will start behaving myself

Taylor can get addicted to this person, and this person should see Taylor's addiction to them as a secret mission they need to pursue. If this partner starts hiding away with Taylor instead of just watching her from afar, then Taylor seems to allude that she'll stop giving her management/friends/family a reason to look closer at their "professional" relationship.

Analysis over <3

feel free to add anything you think I should add to this post in the comments :)

My other song analysis’ if you’re interested <3

#taylor swift #gay icons #gaylor swift #blondie #kaylor #gaylor #tay tay #karlie kloss #i can see you #Emily Poe #lyric analysis #hiding #speak now tv #taylor’s version #vault tracks #more like #queerest tracks #enjoy #<33333

[indigochromatic]

...you know what, I don't think I've ever seen someone talk about this, so why not. Sometimes it feels like a lot of the queer community sees any relationships that happen to be m/f as only capable of, like, shitty walmart-brand knockoff queerness, instead of Real True Queerness. It's "boring". It's "doesn't really count as bi/pan/omni rep", in media. So many posts and essays out there still have to constantly reiterate that 1) bi people exist, and 2) they're still bi and queer even if they're in hetero relationships--just the fucking baseline concepts! And I'm tired of having to defend or be expected to apologize for relationships like mine, instead of being able to actually...y'know, celebrate them. So, here: I actually fucking love being a bisexual guy in a hetero relationship. (Especially with someone who's also mspec.) -> I love that we get vicarious joy from each other's wildly different genders and ways of of experiencing attraction. -> I love that she thinks my attraction to guys is something to cherish, and something she's always trying to learn how to be a better ally for. I love learning about her aceness, and what attraction to femininity looks like for her. -> I love that she also knows what it's like to adore and be attracted to guys, even if her experience of it is different from mine, and I love that she knows firsthand how it feels to have a lady take your breath away, because it makes it all the easier for her to believe me when I tell her that's how I feel about her. -> I love that it kinda feels like we're a whole bunch of different types of relationship all at once: we're gay as fuck, we're disgustingly straight, we're sapphic as hell, we're so far off the screen that we've wrapped all the way around and become straight-but-genderswapped all over again. To put it as simply as I can: I don't feel erased, I feel seen.

#S.txt #been thinking about how to put it into words for a while now #this is a thing that means a lot to me #I'm not trying to pretend that all the cisheteropatriarchy bullshit doesn't exist btw because it sure as hell does #I know that heterosexuality is normalized and privileged in like 99.9% of society #this is a post about queer people in the queer community #and how I have felt about the way people like me and relationships like mine are thought of *in the queer community* #which I am a part of #not only because I am personally queer as fuck #but also because relationships like mine are legitimately part of the queer experience #and I feel like I don't get to hear that said very often #especially as more than just an afterthought #bisexual

[femmespoiled]

i'm 19 and brown. if it's like, not cool for me to ask, feel free to tell me to fuck off but is it okay if i only really like other non-white trans sapphics? my aunt who married into my family told me(she's white) that i should be like, nicer to white people? or more open to them? but i'm just so uncomfortable around them, bc i've had so many bad experiences and i'm just not interested in them! she keeps trying to set me up with white girls, mostly all cis and i don't want anything to do wih them and i can't tell if this is me being a bad person? or my aunt being a bitch??? ;_; if you have any thoughts, PLEASE share, i'm just fucking confused.

"Nicer to white people", that doesn't necessarily mean dating white people, just because you don't date them, it doesn't mean you're not nice to them, I think you're justified specially when you talk about your bad experiences with such. It really bothers me how much some white people can't stand to not be the center of everybody's world. To be in a non white centered existence is to be treated unfairly to some white people and it honestly angers me. Before I get "you're being racist to white people", that doesn't exist, structurally and societally you're not negatively affected by being white, in fact you are privileged and when I say you're privileged, because a lot of white people get this wrong, I don't mean that you have an easy life that's free of struggles and I don't even mean having privilege is a bad thing always, it is, however, something to be acknowledged and taken into account, specially when interacting with people of colour, by privilege I mean that the colour of your skin isn't judged/perceived and treated with (usually harmful) stereotypes/less than a human when you go looking for healthcare, when you look for jobs, when you're dating, when you're existing basically, by privileged I mean most of representation out there in media is still just white people.

If white cis people acknowledged their (specially structural) privilege more, I think we would have less problems like this. There's always a nice white lady who wants you to be nicer to white people, yeah? How about on a macro scale you be nicer to all people of colour who have been treated terribly all around the world? because when I was the only one stopped at the airport by a cop in a foreign country for no reason, while all the white people continuing walking with no worries, who was there to be nice to me?

Let's also talk about how white people sometimes have a tendency of fetishizing people of colour, let's talk about how some straight girls are crazy about dating someone of colour because they want the "exotic mixed babies". And that dates way way way back, specially in colonized areas, when they were trying to lighten our skin and act like they're doing us a favour, when they pushed down our throats the idea that the more light skinned you were the better.

I'm sorry, I digress, but uh, no, I don't think you're in the wrong, you've had bad experiences, you're the one that takes charge of your dating experiences. There are a lot of folks who are t4t because in a trans centered relationship they're able to find understanding and love and shared experiences and healing, I believe same could happen in non white centered relationships.

This is by no means hate to all white people, but some of you really love pretending to be nice to pull off shit like this and I don't like it. It's manipulative and borderline racist, honestly, no, this is racist. I hope your aunt leaves you alone about this, anon, and I hope she sits down and takes a long time to think about why it's so important for her that you date white people. You're not a bad person and she is a bitch.

#ask

[merp-blerp]

I know I'll sound kooky for saying this, but I suspect that Barbie & the Diamond Castle was queer-coded on purpose. I mean this so seriously. There were probably hundreds of people working on this movie. You're telling me none of them were queer? So many queer people have worked for Mattel. Maybe a person (or people) working on this film wanted to make a queer Barbie movie as a form of self-expression or what have you, but couldn't explicitly do so because it was 2008 and that would've been seen as inappropriate for a family film (still could be seen that way 🙄). So they got as close as they could with Diamond Castle.

Just the essence of this film is so sapphic. Alexa and Liana live alone together, away from whatever town might be nearby. They see nothing more important than their relationship with one another and Liana says that Alexa "knows me better than anyone else in the entire universe" (it's almost like no one else in this medieval world could know Liana that well, maybe because she's gay and the only person who could safely know that is Alexa) and "I feel like a part of me is gone" after they fight and she believes their relationship might be over.

They get what looks like male "love interests" on the surface, but they don't actually behave like couples. The girls butt-heads with them a lot as if it'll be an enemies-to-lovers type of romance like Annika and Aidan from Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus, but it never really becomes romantic. They don't even imply a happily ever after with the twins (whatever their names were, no one cares), they go back home together without them in their lives, at least not majorly. I think the fact that they don't have male love interests is the crux of this whole theory. The boys' existence is enough for kids and even adults watching to believe there's a straight romance in this film, especially if you've seen other Barbie films and know the formula, but there isn't. The movie just has male characters who take interest in the girls in a completely one-sided infatuation, heteronormativity does the rest when it comes to the audience thinking there's a romance with the boys.

Alexa and Liana's relationship is the most important aspect of the movie; the entire story is about their relationship, not their relationship with the boys at all, which separates Barbie & the Diamond Castle from other Barbie movies from this time, which all had hetero-romances in one way or another. This is probably why so many sapphic kids who grew up with it, like myself, loved it so much.

All these factors together just make me wonder if the queerness was intentional on someone's part.

Even if you bypass the queer interpretation, it's really refreshing to have a story that's about female friendship and that's it. No forced or unforced romance, just a story about girls and their friendship(s). There's no issue with romance, but also there's no issue with a lack of romance as well. That kind of message is hard to come by, even in more "adult" media.

(As a bit of a sidebar, the only queer aspect to this film that is surely coincidental to me is Alexa and Liana's dresses looking like the lesbian and bi pride flags. Liana's dresses do share a color scheme with the Emily Gwen lesbian flag, but that particular lesbian flag wasn't in existence till 2018, ten years after this movie was released. By association, I assume Alexa's dresses having the colors of the bi flag is also a coincidence, even though that flag was created in 1998 before this film. It is very cute how that turned out, though.)

#what else is there to do on a saturday afternoon besides write a tumblr essay on an old barbie movie? have a life? no way! #i wanted their lives so much as a kid gee i wonder why? #barbie and the diamond castle #barbie #lesbian #lesbians #bisexual #sapphic #queer coding #mattel

[itsclydebitches]

The Bumbleby scene feels too random at this point. It’s like they literally picked the scene out of a hat to “confirm” it. As you mentioned, the don’t even hold hands. You’re telling me that’s more intimate than the freaking cheek holding head touched in V8? Wait a minute, didn’t everyone think BB started back in V6 after they killed Adam? What the fuck is even going on anymore?!

People have always shipped it, but yeah, 'canonizing' them started post-Volume 3 and ramped up into 'Oh damn I think they're really gonna do it!' territory in Volume 6. We've got:

Yang grappling with Blake leaving post-Beacon. (She's not, for example, similarly concerned that Weiss 'abandoned' her too. Yang shouldn't have any idea that Weiss was essentially kidnapped by her dad)

Tender and then rejected hand-holding in the shed at the farm

Agreed upon hand-holding while fighting Adam which, yeah, a lot of people read as the moment they 'solved' their relationship troubles, seguing into something new. Hand-holding is often used in RWBY to indicate a romantic relationship, the only problem with using this as a confirmation is that all our other examples also have something more overt: Saphron and Terra are married, Nora kisses Ren/he says "I love you," etc.

Adam's "What do you see in her?" line. Although, this one is severely complicated by a contradiction in the fandom. Many fans claim this implies that Adam recognizes Blake's interest in Yang precisely because she was once interested in him - how can you like her over me? That's compounded by his motivations changing from being politically focused to what feels like stalking and hunting down an ex. However, these fans don't want to admit to the other implications that Blake and Adam were an item due to a lot of anti-men sentiments, biphobia, gold star lesbian nonsense, and the like. Basically, some fans want to use Adam's potential relationship with Blake as proof that she's in a relationship with Yang now, but not actually admit that they ever had that relationship because ew, how could perfect Blake like a male villain? There's also some of that with Sun: fans using Blake's interactions with him to support an interest in Yang ('She has a type!'), but simultaneously denying that blacksun was ever a possibility because that supposedly (not actually) threatens the sanctity of her One True Sapphic Love.

Forehead touch after Adam dies + a promise to never leave

More hand-holding in the airship

Blushing over Yang complimenting her haircut

Having fun pre-outing in Atlas that kinda implies it might be a date, but no one actually establishes it as a date and everyone is going out together, so...

Taking silly pictures together when they get their licenses

Nora's comments to Ren about how they're likely more than friends

Yang being worried about Blake even though she fought with Ruby

Yang tenderly cupping Blake's cheek when they're reunited

Blake loosing it when Yang "dies"

Tackle-hug when everyone else gets...uh, a knee touch?

Blake being flirty, leaning in, finger brush

Weiss' "It's about time" comment

I've probably missed some stuff, but the point is that it's been four years (or even six years depending on how far back you're willing to go) and we're still in this flirty, teasing, ambiguous stage where, as demonstrated above, reading a romantic relationship often requires making a lot of assumptions that rely on having a lot of trust in your writers. I don't know if I'd call all this random, but it is a holding pattern. They blush, hold hands, and others vaguely comment on what they might be. But unlike our straight couples, we're not given anything solid to canonize them with.

I mean, even if you're a fan who believes that these little breadcrumbs are enough to prove the love between them (and here I'm addressing the fandom at large, not you specifically, Happygaynoises2) we get how the queer couples aren't given equal treatment, right? Pyrrha kissed Jaune. Nora kissed Ren. Ren said "I love you." Jaune asked Weiss to the dance. Weiss blatantly chases after Neptune. Ozpin marries and has kids with Salem. Everyone but Adrian has married, straight parents.

Compare that to our queer rep (with May being an exception due to her gender) and it's pretty obvious that this glacial "slow burn" has less to do with the needs of the story and more about RT hesitating to make two of the main girls unambiguously queer. After all, if most of your fans are happy with those breadcrumbs and a canonical relationship would drive away the homophobes... why not just toe the line to keep both groups around, giving you more money?

That's a form of queerbaiting and it's why so many of us remain nervous. I seriously hope given what we've seen so far that this will FINALLY be the Volume when we can set the 'Will they, won't they?' to rest. But who can actually say.

#rwde #rwby #mymetas

[thottybrucewayne]

The "lesbians liking men" shit is coming up again. and I am...very, very tired. Like, tbh, unless you are a multigender lesbian yourself, ion wanna hear that shit coming out your mouth. Because nonlesbians outside of our spaces who don't know jack nor shit about the inner workings of our community will just start saying shit that is very dangerous for us if it ever falls on cishet ears! I know lesbians who are in relationships with men or have sex with men. Some of them went to my church. Some of them are sex workers. Alot of them have a family that would literally kill them if they came out.

I myself used to use sex with cishet men as a form of self-harm to force myself to be "normal." Does that make me a lesbian who secretly loves men, too? Yes, a lesbian can have sex or a relationship with a man. You got me. But, there's a myriad of reasons why that is, and out of the billions there are, liking men most likely is not one of them.

Yall up here saying, "Lesbians fuck men all the time! Lesbians love dating and having sex with men; that's a known fact!" But, a lot of the lesbians I know who get involved with men are either doing it to punish themselves for being a lesbian in the first place, or they're deep in the closet because they don't have a choice. Also, a lot of yall running around here saying, "Lesbians like men! I know a lesbian who loves men!" But you really mean, "I know a lesbian who stayed with their partner after he realized he's a trans man." or "I know a lesbian who hooks up with trans men and thinks of them as butch 2.0" Neither of these "prove that lesbians secretly love men." Btw. One is an instance of two people continuing the relationship they had while navigating orientation and gender on their own terms. And the other is just a predatory transphobe and an example of antitransmasculinity in lesbian spaces. So again, I don't believe that either of these instances can be a firm example of Lesbians "liking" men. But that doesn't really matter because all y'all really want to do is tell lesbians we're wrong for being lesbians. You want to call lesbian a "restrictive and archaic label that should be done away with and replaced with sapphic" or whatever. It's crazy watching yall spout lesbophobic rhetoric day in and day out that is indistinguishable from the shit my family says to me every time they see me. Yall and my aunt who keeps telling me that I can still marry a man and have babies even though I'm a lesbian, are the exact same in my eyes. Yall don't care about how we feel when we're forced into saying that we don't like men all day, every day, just for someone to pull out, "Well, I know a lesbian who got married to a man and had 7 kids with him" as a gotcha... 9 times out of 10, if a lesbian is with a man, esp a cis man, it's not because she loves or even likes him. But that's too nuanced for you, so you point to the lesbian locked in a loveless marriage or comphet hell relationship or being actively predatory towards trans men or doing survival sex work and say, "So lesbians love men actually?" like, is that not crazy????

#thotty speaks #thotty rants #im so upset over this because it reminds me that people don't respect me or who I am #this and the 'butch lesbians are misogynistic' shit is getting on my nerves just shut the fuck up!

[aphrodisianbaby]

Hi! I really like your blog, and I'm curious if you just worship deities, or do you worship heroes, spirits, etc. as well? Would you be interested in worshiping Sappho, for example? 

 I'm new to the Tumblr pagan/polytheist-sphere, and I was inspired by my research on Sappho and Aphrodite (I'm slowly working on defining modern Sapphic rhetoric and modern Sapphic online spaces) for my MA thesis to look into polytheism. I' also identify as a sapphic woman so this topic is in general very fun for me to learn about. Also, would it be okay if I included your answer in my project? If not, totally cool! ☺️ and if so, thats great too. (I can def give you more info about what I'm doing if you'd like as well.)

hello love !! apologies that this is so late, asks are anti-my executive functioning. i absolutely wouldnt mind you including my opinion or asking for more ! since you're focusing on sapphic themes, I'll make it clear that I'm a transmasc mlm not a sapphic or a woman ! I'm unsure if that matters to your thesis, but I wouldn't want to skew your data :)

for your question, i personally only really worship Deities. this isn't because I wouldn't worship a hero or a past human, but I have never really felt called to thus far. the closest I've come is contact with a spirit i consider an ancestor and spirit guide whom i refer to as "the fox" online for privacy reasons. even then, we don't have a consistent line of contact like i do with the Divine.

I do have an appreciation for Sappho absolutely. i honor her on this blog specifically because i have a UPG view* that Sappho was a lover of Aphrodite. i believe that Deities can share different levels of relationship with humans, and that Aphrodite had favor for Sappho. I can go more in depth on this if you're interested, or if anyone else is, but I won't clog up this ask with my upg

I think, in the future, I may be interested in hero worship**. i think there is something very healing and personal about forming relationships with energies that were once human, especially those who lived in completely different times than us now. I think it can really bridge the gap between the Divine and human experiences by adding a level of understanding that a Deity may never have, the experience of living as a human being. this was something I valued a lot when I worshiped Psykhe, the Goddess often considered the ruler of the human soul. when you're surrounded by big Divine energies all the time, having a familiar, mortal energy can be quite relieving.

on top of this, I think there's something unique about Sappho's position. it's one thing for a Goddess to tell you how much She loves and accepts you, it's another thing to speak with a queer spirit who lived, breathed, and was adored by others for their queerness. the ancient people loved Sappho's poetry and it was spread across the middle east, even if only fragments remain now. i think it can be an amazing experience for queer people to connect with someone who was adored for their sapphic identity so long ago. even if you don't personally identify as sapphic or even as femme/female. Sappho is the teacher who reminds us that being queer was and always will be something to honor and worship.

*UPG meaning unverified personal gnosis. it's a religious idea or practice that I carry without it being a verified belief or practice in antiquity.

**when I say "hero worship", im generally referring to the worship of influential humans or human figures.

#ask #sophiemk22 #sappho #aphrodite #hero worship #sappho worship #upg #personal #helpol #hellenic polytheism

[fuzziekins]

In honor of Aromantic Awareness Week and the announcement of Frozen 3, i wanted to share my favorite aroace headcannon. And i would hope that either Disney Gives Elsa a Girlfriend or treats her like the aroace queen that she is.

Elsa is a role model for so many reasons but she especially means something to the queer community. Her iconic songs Let It Go and Show Yourself are queer anthems. With Let It Go, just like the queer community Elsa doesn't have to believe that she's wrong for who she is, being born with these ice powers and being so different, and she can finally be the person she's meant to be. She doesn't have to pretend or put on a facade anymore just to make people happy. Let It Go means so many things to so many people, but there's a freedom in it that we especially feel when we realize who we are and get to be who we're meant to be. In Show Yourself, Elsa says "I have always been so different, normal rules did not apply." We live in a heteronormative, amatonormative society so anything else makes us different and so many rules don't apply to us because we don't fit into that norm. This is especially true of asexual, aromantic, and aroace people because our lives and relationships look vastly odd to people who don't understand. When Iduna tells Elsa "you are the one you've been waiting for", the aspec vibes are POWERFUL; it highlights that Elsa doesn't and never needed anyone and that she can live a fulfilling life as she is. Just like how romance and/or intimacy isn't a necessity out of life like society makes us believe.

While part of me would love to see either Gay Elsa or AroAce Elsa confirmed, there's a small part of me that likes not knowing for sure. It gives us all the freedom to relate to Elsa regardless of label or attraction. Asexual; Aromantic; Gay; Bisexual; the list goes on. At the end of the day, we look at Elsa and see that she's queer just like we are. Just like Elsa, we should have the opportunity to be free and celebrated because of who we are as people, not because we're different.

Elsa's outfit is obviously a nod to both the asexual and aromantic flags, incorporating purple and green. Her eyeshadow was also colored green, reflecting the second shade of the aromantic flag. As a nod to #GiveElsaAGirlfriend i colored the jewel on her cape with a violet pencil, the violet symbolizing the violet flower in the sapphic flag. When it came to coloring Honeymaren (the obvious potential partner and also can we please have more of her?), i used the concept art for reference and kept the colors on her primarily neutral so the bisexual snowflake jewel [that Elsa created for her] would pop more. When it came to choosing a flag for the background, i was debating between using an aroace flag and combining the aroace and lesbian flags. While i personally ship Elsa and Honeymaren and, based off Elsa's personality as taking time to get to know people before actually getting close with them, see Elsa as demiromantic and/or demisexual, not everyone would agree. I ended up using a queer pride flag as the background. This is not only representative of the whole community, regardless of who Elsa is or isn't, but also reflects that queer needs no explanation. Regardless of what Elsa is or isn't at the end of the day we accept and love her as part of the LGBTQIA+ community and, hopefully, we are given that representation in Frozen 3.

#frozen #frozen 2 #frozen 3 #elsa #honeymaren #elsamaren #disney #disney say gay #give elsa a girlfriend #aroace elsa #gay elsa #queer elsa #fan art #drawing #queer #aroace #aromantic #asexual