#and it's v heterosexual but i will allow it

[rebelontherocks]

the string of events that led me to watch dune 2 in theaters is something... and sent me into the rabbit hole that is only possible when you watch something that is 'good' but not 'great' and which doesn't seem interested to grapple with its own themes.

#anyway what i've been writing for dune will remain anon until i finish crossed blades because i don't want a repeat of my last succ fic #i will say tho that what i like about dune is the same thing i like about succ: family as a tool of empire #plus there are some interesting parallels to be made between the rancid misogyny of the empire and the more egalitarian fremen #i love that scene where paul says he'd 'very much want to be equal' to chani and then well... there's the whole ending scene... #chilling depiction of heterosexuality i don't think i've seen such a scathing portrayal of cishet relationships under patriarchy #in such a mainstream movie at least (this is coincidentally the theme i think the movie doesn't grapple well with it's just there #the eugenics of empire are never allowed to become a full source of horror) #the way this reverberates through the genuine tenderness between feyd and paul as they are literally fighting to the death is v moving tho #i have to write something for irulan and chani there's a lot of potential there: the white woman who benefits from empire #(very directly being the emperor's daughter but who is reduced to breeding cattle + war prize by the misogyny of the empire) #and the black woman who is directly victimized by empire but is liberated in her struggle against it

[xsdjkl]

How many times V and So Mi touch each other?

Total count as well every scene included is under cut. Hope I didn't miss anything. If I did, feel free to add :)

I counted scenes with So Mi's Relic version as well, even though technically they can't touch each other

Also, I allowed myself to add some comments in few scenes

Enjoy ;)

EDITED: Total count: 27/9

First number for siding with So Mi, second - siding with Reed

Dog Eat Dog - V tries to touch So Mi

Dog Eat Dog - So Mi grabs V's hand

THAT SCENE i was screaming

You Know My Name - V meets So Mi face to face and touches her back

You Know My Name - Songbird reestablishes Relic conection through touch

You Know My Name - the same

The Damned (I won't count it, but still wanted to include it ) - So Mi tries to touch V

Firestarter - V helps So Mi get up from the ground

Killing Moon - they touch each other so many times, it was actually difficult to count 😅

V comforts So Mi in the van

So Mi and V hide from the helicopter

my beloved water scene - V helps So Mi get up (and notice how she holds on to V as long as she can 🥹)

Tower scene, V kneels down and places their hand on So Mi's knee

when V connects to Songbird via personal link, So Mi takes their hand into her own

V touches So Mi's shoulder before she connects to the Blackwall

V helps So Mi stand up

EDIT : V protects So Mi from the helicopter blast (I reached attachment limit, so I can't add this gif here😥. EDIT2: I removed one gif to add this one! Also, huge thanks @jshepardtsoni for reminding me about that scene in ur tags 💙)

V checks if So Mi's still alive

V picks So Mi up (her voice breaks me)

V helps So Mi sit down in the train

Knee scene 🥹🥹 *pat pat*

V keeps So Mi awake (was I the only person who had flashbacks to Jackie's death?? I was so scared for her ._.)

A little help from V

V places So Mi on the ground

AND I'M SORRY, BUT V DIDN'T HAVE ANY REASON TO HOLD SO MI'S HAND FOR SO LONG

there is no heterosexual explanation for this

V picks So Mi up from the ground

V places So Mi in the seat

V prepares So Mi for the flight

Last time V touches So Mi

Somewhat Damaged - EDIT3: Added gif. I reached attachment limit tho, so not all scenes are shown :')

Comforting So Mi - V hugs her and the way she's holding their hand is just destroying me. and the hand nuzzle ._. i'm weak

Also, V can shake So Mi instead of hugging her

this fcking scene ._. and it's worth mentioning that V touches So Mi's face twice

V carries So Mi's body from the car

#took few days to gather it all together #i am going insane don't i? #i reached the attachment limit lol #probably my longest post ever #also referring to v as they/them cause it can be anyone's v #but just so you know... i was playing femV and I will die for this ship #i will later post separately few of these gifs ;) #song so mi #songbird #cyberpunk 2077 #phantom liberty spoilers #phantom liberty #cyberpunk 2077 spoilers #songbird cyberpunk #songv #so mi/v #songbird/v

[mrssimply]

Johnny insisted to tag along with V, even though the merc warned him it was going to be a slow gig, with a lot of observation and waiting, and very little action. It didn’t deter the resurrected rocker, who said - to V’s chagrin - that he was bored out of his fucking mind and didn’t have anything better to do.

Even more worrying, he announced he was going to join V a little while later because he needed to prepare some things.

Some things happened to be a crate of beers, a bottle of tequila, and pizzas.

“Johnny, I’m on a job, this ain’t a fucking picnic…”

“Who said it can’t be both? C’mon V, have a little fun, it’s not gonna kill you.”

V refrained from pointing out they were on top of one of the higher buildings in Night City, without any barriers to keep them away from the void should one of them (Johnny) stumble over the parapet in a drunken haze.

He sighed and nodded, and had to bite his cheek to stop smiling at Johnny’s shit eating grin.

V was already set: the sniper rifle waiting with its muzzle over the parapet, extended in the direction of V’s target: he was overseeing a meeting between his client and a buyer. The client suspected his buyer of fool play, and was counting on V to put a bullet through their head should they show signs of not playing fair during the exchange.

The meeting was happening in the adjacent megabuilding, in a living unit the client had rented for the occasion.

So while V checked his settings in the visor, Johnny went on with his picnic, and even pulled out a blanket.

“Should I expect candles and a proposal?” The merc joked, getting a finger in reply. He grinned before focusing back on his target. The meeting hour was getting close, and V could observe his client pace back and forth in front of the window.

He heard Johnny uncap a beer, and a second one before bringing the first one to V, lying on his front in imitation of the merc.

“I’m not drinking, J. I need to be clear headed.”

He knew without checking that Johnny rolled his eyes at that.

“More for me, then.”

The rocker seemed content to drink in silence, allowing V to watch the byer come into the room. The silence was short lived, however.

“Did you know there is a guy dancing naked, two stories down?” Johnny said, and without meaning to, V glanced at him to discover him with binoculars perched on his nose and a smoke between his lips.

With a discreet sigh, V went back to position, and ignored him.

“Ah, apparently it was his warming ritual before jerking off. He’s making a grand show of it, too.”

Through his visor, V could see his client and his buyer seated at the table strategically placed in front of the window. A suitcase was waiting between them, but so far, the conversation looked relaxed.

“Ah, he’s gonna get jizz everywhere, it’s not gonna be pretty.”

Despite himself, V fell to temptation and pointed his rifle slightly lower. The guy was indeed in the middle of his room, kneeling and doing his business like it was the best sex he’d ever had.

With a long suffering sigh, he repositioned the rifle.

“Ya know, watching a random guy jerk off ain’t super straight behavior.”

“Oh I think we were all here to celebrate my heterosexuality’s funeral. I distinctly remember you and Kerry playing a key part in it.”

V chuckled, replaying the fond memory in his mind's eye. In the real world, he saw his client tense and refocused on that, finger on the trigger.

“Oh, plot twist, the NCPD just barged in. Man, they got great timing,” he recounted while V followed the silent conversation across the void: his services were going to be needed in a minute, if he believed his instincts.

“Oopie oopsie, one dutiful officer just got a load on his boots and they’re mad. Oof, that was nasty,” Johnny went on. “Ah, they’re taking him away. He’s in for a nice walk of shame in front of the neighbors.”

V couldn’t help but snort, imagining the scene, but his distraction was cut short as his client’s buyer pulled a gun out.

Taking a deep breath, V prepared to fire… Only for him to grunt as Johnny crawled on all four over him and grinded against his ass.

“Fuck, Johnny! Get off!”

“That’s the plan.”

“I mean it!” V complained as he repositioned the rifle, taking aim again.

Over him, the rocker snorted and nuzzled the sensitive part of his neck playfully.

“C’mon, take the shot, big bad merc like you has nerves of steel,” he crooned.

V prided himself on his cold blood in most situations, but there were a few instances where he was basically a slave to baser instincts, mainly any situation involving sex, Johnny and/or Kerry. Johnny knew it and abused the knowledge regularly to get what he wanted or just torture his friend. Like today.

He rocked against V’s ass playfully, forcing V to lock all his muscle to not move an inch.

His client was holding his hands up and being more professional than V: he wasn’t glancing at the window, but V read the signal all the same: his index made a little swirling movement.

“C’mon V, don’t botch the job, take. the. shot,” Johnny whispered right in his ear before licking it.

V took the shot, and watched the buyer's head explode, covering his client in goop and blood. But he was safe. Releasing the gun, V turned and tackled Johnny to the ground before grinding against him.

“You’re gonna regret that.”

Johnny laughed out loud, and reached out to the side to retrieve a bottle of lube that he shook in front of V’s eyes.

“Sure I will, tiger. Do your worst.”

They spent the night here, their skins cooling off thanks to the breeze constantly blowing at this height. They ate the pizzas cold and drank all the beers before Johnny started on the tequila between two cigarettes.

“What do you think that guy did to have the NCPD barge in on his me-time?” John asked, words slurring with his drunken state.

“Who cares,” V mumbled, hands behind his head, looking at the advertising holograms rising slowly into the sky.

“What a tragedy,” Johnny bemoaned, making V laugh again.

“You would think so.”

“It should be a constitutional crime, let a guy finish properly instead of ruining him buzz. Poor bloke.”

Turning on his side, V stole Johnny’s smoke.

“You’re just commiserating ‘cause you know that could��ve been you.”

“I would never let the NCPD surprise me like that, V. Question of honor. I would face them on my two feet.”

“You would use your cock as a weapon, too, since you’re convinced the thing has super powers.”

“The thing,” Johnny repeated in distaste. “Fine, see if I use it to make you come after calling it that.”

V raised an eyebrow at him.

“Not super worried, J. You’re the slut here.”

“And proud to be! You should try it V.”

Their banter went on for a while and devolved into another round before they fell asleep one on top of the other.

V woke up when the sun fell on his closed eyelids, bringing a hangover with it and making him moan miserably.

Johnny’s brilliant ideas…

He sat up with a grunt and looked around. He was alone on the blanket, surrounded by the empty beer bottles. One had visibly escaped the others’ fate as Johnny was drinking it, perched on the parapet, with a leg dangling in the void.

Yawning and stretching, V shivered in the cold morning air. The sun was just reaching over the horizon, piercing through two tall buildings on the east. The sight still took v’s breath away and he sat there for a minute, just taking it in. The cold made him start to move, pulling his clothes back on and finding Johnny’s pack a few feet away. He pulled the last cigarette out and went to join his friend, feet over the drop.

“Hey,” Johnny greeted him, voice low and gravely from the alcohol and the smoking. His usual morning voice, then.

“You know, we have a really great bed at my place or at Kerry’s, so I really don’t get why we slept on a measly blanket on the ground.”

In answer, Johnny just waved his chrome arm around.

“‘Cause it’s only here you get to see the sun rise over your kingdom, V.”

The merc looked at it: the streets not yet that busy, the tall shadows under the building as the sun fought them away, and the general atmosphere of a new dawn, full of opportunities.

He grunted in ascent, pulling on the smoke.

“Am I right or am I right?” Johnny still asked, because he wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to be praised.

“Sure, you’re right. Now give me that bottle.”

“Of course, my king,” Johnny replied with a flourish, making V snort.

When I showed the pic to @m-lter she said that Johnny looked absolutely faded and she was totally right since I told myself the same thing when I took the pic. But since it’s Johnny’s natural state, I kept it that way and decided to write a little story as a companion to the pic.

So Merry Christmas to y’all who celebrate it, even though this clearly has nothing to do with Christmas, I’m just posting it today.

#cyberpunk 2077 #cp2077 #johnny silverhand #male v #virtual photography #SilverV #Johnny x V #SilverVdyne #if you squint #it’s always in the background with me #it’s my default ship so you should always expect it #merry christmas #even though this has nothing to do with it

[spn-fanfic-reblog-writes]

Hihi!! Can i req for kinktober 8. fuck or die with sam Winchester or castiel (idm) the readers dying and only there onsolved feelings for sam or cas is the only way to save (if you get me 🙇‍♀️🩷)

Thank you for the ask, Anon! ❤️❤️❤️

I was already planning to do a similar version but I like yours better. Here ya go!

Warning: heterosexual sex (p in v), unprotected sex, wrap it up, kiddos! nipple play, tw: love curse, tw: physical pain, tw: person dying, schmoopy, Angst and Fluff and Smut

Day 8: Sex Pollen/Fuck or Die, (Ask request)

“Sam, it hurts.”

Y/n looked pale as he held her in his arms with his cell phone pressed between his ear and shoulder.

“Hello, Dearie.”

“Rowena, Y/n got hit with a curse…” Sam proceeded to explain the events that led up to now, including Castiel being unable to heal her or affect the spell cast on her.

“Oh, Darling,” Rowena trilled. “You’re gonna need to make love to the lass.”

“What?!” Sam squeaked. He’d had a crush on Y/n since meeting her, nearly a year ago, finding her cute, and kind, and they seemed to have similar interests in books and research. From the first time he saw her smile, he was caught in her web, and she had no idea.

“You heard me, Samuel.” She paused for a few moments, realizing the situation as Sam remained silent. “You have feelings for her?”

Sam eyed Y/n, who was wrapped in a blanket in his arms, dozing.

“Yes,” he confirmed, quietly on the phone. “I can’t let her die, Rowena.”

“Oh, you poor boy. I told you what you have to do, but there is a catch, Samuel, darling.”

Sam silently waited.

“She has to have feelings for you in return. The spell is a sort of curse and love spell. If the other doesn’t reciprocate, it kills the one who is cursed. You have 24 hours at most from when the spell is cast upon them, and you both have to admit your feelings for each other.”

Sam felt the blood in his face drain away at the realization they were extremely short on time. It had been six hours already as he had scoured the library’s card catalog before calling the witch.

“HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THAT? SHE KEEPS FALLING ASLEEP AND CAN BARELY EAT!” Sam quietly yelled through gritted teeth, waking Y/n who looked up at him; however, he didn’t notice.

“Samuel.” Rowena quietly informed, “The spell will allow you to make love once things…get going or said. Trust me. This is the only way to break the curse. You can do this. While I haven’t met her, I’m certain she has feelings for you too.” Rowena almost sounded as if she was lamenting.

“Thanks, Rowena,” Sam replied quietly as he contemplated how to save Y/n.

Dean saw Sam hang up and looked at him expectantly.

“I’ll explain later. I got this,” Sam informed Dean.

Sam looked down to the now awake Y/n, who watched him.

“Are you ok?” she asked softly. Her weakened state making even talking troublesome.

Sam’s face softened—amazed that she was worried about him despite her dying—and nodded. He kissed her hair. “Yes. We need to get you to your room and settled in bed.”

Without a word or warning, Sam changed his arm placement and picked Y/n up bridal style causing her to yelp. He grinned at her. “I’ve got you, Y/n. Nothing is gonna hurt you if I can help it.”

Dean and Castiel secretly smiled at each other and held hands under the library table.

While Sam walked to Y/n’s room in the bunker, he thought back about his interactions with Y/n, wondering if she feels the same way about him. They’d been spending more time together over the last few months. They'd been texting each other daily and Y/n would always text good morning and good night to him. He began to feel confident that she felt the same way, but getting her to admit those feelings might be harder.

By the time Sam put Y/n down in her bed, she had fallen asleep again. Her body was shutting down. He sat down next to her and gently caressed her face, calling her name.

Y/n blinked a few times before awakening to see Sam smiling at her, and she smiled back and placed her hand on his hand on her face. “Hi,” she greeted, her eyes soft and her cheeks barely pink.

Is she blushing? Sam wondered.

“Hi,” Sam returned.

“What did Rowena say?”

Sam dropped his hand away from her face as he spoke. “She said it was a love curse.”

Y/n looked at her lap. “Oh. What does that mean?”

Sam sighed and clarified, “Rowena said that you would need to admit your feelings to who you’re in love with and…and…make love.” He could feel his face heating up as he looked towards her nightstand, then back at her.

Y/n eyebrows rose into her hairline, her slightly pinkened cheeks darkening. She remained silent a moment, then winced and whined at the pain in her abdomen. “I don’t understand how, Sam.”

“She said the curse will allow you, once things start going. If there is someone we need to call or get, I’m sure Cas will go get them.”

She smiled widely and looked at him, placing her hand on his cheek.

“Sam,” she gently chided. “There isn’t anyone else.”

His heart raced on his chest as his cooling face began to heat up. “What do you mean?”

Y/n knew if she was going to live, it was now or never as her heart rate increased. Her chest started aching but she ignored it. “You.” she explained, her voice trembling. “Ever since I met you, it’s been you.”

Sam took this as permission. He leaned down and brushed his lips, chastely, against hers. His stomach fluttered with butterflies and bees. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down on top of her. Her chest warmed and tension faded away. It was so much easier to breathe. He bracketed her in with his arms, knees between her legs, tangling his fingers in her soft y/c hair. The kiss reassured her as her body felt to be tentatively improving. She tightened her arms further as her strength returned, crushing her lips against his, and moaned. He slid his tongue against hers and a dance ensued as they devoured each other.

Y/n captured Sam’s moans as she pushed her chest against him. Pulling away from him, she looked up and smiled. “I think we should, um…” She looked away, unable to complete the sentence.

“Right,” Sam agreed, realizing what she meant. He sat on his haunches, removed his plaid, and pulled off his shirt. Y/n turned to watch him at his words with an eyebrow raised and chewing on her lower lip. “Y/n.” He chuckled at her watching him.

“Right,” she agreed. She grabbed the front hem and pulled off her shirt revealing a spaghetti strap undershirt.

“You don’t wear a bra?” Sam asked.

“Do I look like I need to wear a bra?” She asked incredulously, and grabbed her breasts through the undershirt. She giggled, “It’s not like I got a lot here.”

“I don’t know. I think I need a better look to judge for sure.” he teased, acting playfully thoughtful.

She pulled off her undershirt revealing her chest. Her breasts, while on the small side, seemed to be the perfect size for Sam, just enough to fill his hand. He squeezed slightly and grinned. “I think you’re perfect.”

Y/n could feel her face heat up at the compliment.

With his other hand, Sam tilted Y/n face up to him and tenderly kissed her. Y/n pushed him away, frustrated. “Sam, we need to speed this up. I’m already starting to feel…weird.”

“Weird, how?”

“I don’t know. Not like myself. Just like before. Off.” She couldn’t figure out how to explain it but remembers a similar feeling hours earlier before the pain started. Determined to get the show on the road, Y/n repositioned herself to be kneeling and pulled Sam down to her. She skipped his lips and went for his neck, sucking marks in his skin across his jugular then his Adam’s apple. Sam gasped in surprise, then moaned, causing her to chuckle.

You’re mine, Sam.

Sam was stunned at her directness and desire for him. His hands sat at her hips. She moved slowly from one side of his neck to the other.

And I’m yours.

Sliding her hands down his arms, squeezing and feeling their strength and definition, she grabbed his wrists, slid one to her ass, and the other to her breast, squeezing his hands. He finished rebooting and pinched her nipple, gently rolling it between his thumb and forefinger while he massaged her asscheek. Y/n moaned into his neck, then nipped and licked his shoulder.

She slid her hands down his chest, stopping to trace his defined abdominal muscles. The feel of his muscles went straight to her core and she could feel that she suddenly soaked her panties. She had a muscle kink and never told anyone since it was very superficial. She went to his belt, unbuckling it blindly while she nibbled his collarbone. She popped open the button, then slowly pulled his zipper down.

Surprised, he glanced down, seeing her finger the edge of his boxer-briefs. “Y/n, you’re moving fast.”

Y/n pulled back. “Sam, take off my pants,” she commanded, then hesitantly asked, “Can I take off yours?”

She grinned and worked his underwear and pants down together. His large cock sprung out and she stopped to stare. “Holy shit.”

Now it was Sam’s turn to blush. He had never gotten that reaction before. He worked to remove her pants and she helped. Once they were both naked, they took each other in for a few moments.

“Is there anything you don’t like?” inquired Y/n.

This was not going how he imagined it but answered anyway. “Uh…not that I can think of right now. If you do something I don’t like, I’ll let you know.”

“Same,” she confirmed.

“You?” he asked.

“Um, no penetrating my ass this time around. Need to clean up.”

“Ok.”

Things stalled a bit for Sam but not for Y/n. She wrapped her hand around his girth, stroking his length. Sam practically growled at her action. She bit her lower lip and giggled. She leaned forward, licking the underside from base to tip then engulfed the tip in her mouth. He growl-groaned at the sensation. Since she was unable to communicate, she grabbed his hand and placed it on the back of her head. He instantly grabbed the back of her hair, pulling her off.

“If you keep that up, I’m not gonna last.”

She failed to hide her grin, never having had someone react so strongly to her. “Then fuck me, Sam.”

Sam leaned forward and picked her up as he sat back on his heels. Y/n’s breath trembled and a shiver went down her spine at the change. He cocked a brow at her but she just held on to his shoulders as he did the same to her thighs and ass

“Y/n, I need to tell you something.”

“Sam,” she begged and squirmed in his hands and arms. “Please.” She wrapped her legs around him and he lined his cock up to her entrance, lowering her.

They both groaned the moment he began to penetrate her hot, wet heat. The burn from Sam’s large size felt amazing, especially once he bottomed out. She took a few slow, deep breaths, having never felt so full.

“Are you ok?” Sam asked, concerned.

Her pupils were dilated with barely any y/e/c shown. “So full,” she panted and squirmed on his cock. “Please, Sam. Please fuck me.”

Sam slowly thrust into her soaked channel at first. Throwing her head back, she closed her eyes and moaned. Once he started to speed up, she panted and whined. “More,” she begged.

He gently laid her down on the bed, bringing her further up his thighs, and thrust into her with force. The strength of his thrusts sent lightning down his spine to his groin. He knew he was close. She screamed with pleasure, encouraging Sam to continue. She brought her hands to her nipples, rolling them around and pinching them. He pressed open-mouth kisses across her chest and left marks from his teeth on the inside of both her breasts with licks from his tongue.

She carded fingers through Sam’s hair, damp from sweat, and scratched his scalp, causing him to groan. Her hand goes rubbing her clit. He gasped at her walls clenching around him and this pushed her over the brink, crashing and burning as she screamed through her release. The sight of her — beautiful and sexy— was such that he, too, grunted and exploded, filling her full.

Sam bracketed her in again with his hands on either side of her shoulders. He huffed and panted, trying to catch his breath. She smiled blissfully at him. She raised a finger and lightly touched his cheek. “How are you?”

He huffed a laugh. “Great.”

Her hand dropped to her chest and she panted, “Me too.”

He leaned down, brushing his lips against hers, and rubbed his nose against hers. She lightly giggled.

“I love you, Sam.” She told him like it was an everyday thing they told each other.

He smiled widely, “I love you, Y/n.”

::::

The next afternoon, Y/n was in the library reading in Sam’s lap, snuggled against him.

“How are the lovebirds?” Dean teased.

“We’re good,” replied Y/n. She grabbed her cell, looked at it, then put it down. “Five more minutes,” she informed Sam.

He kissed the top of her head. “Ok.”

“Five more minutes until what?” asked Castiel.

“We’re making sure the curse is broken and there is a time limit on it. While we don’t know the exact time, we have an idea of when it was, give or take, so just waiting it out to make sure.”

Dean and Cas chuckled. “Mind if we wait with you?”

“Of course, the more the merrier,” replied Y/n. Dean and Castiel sat down next to each other. Castiel on Dean’s laptop and Dean on his phone as they held hands under the table

#anon ask #kinktober 2023 request #unrequited feelings actually requited #day 8 sex pollen/fuck or die #Sam Winchester #castiel #reader insert #female reader #basing off the emoji used #supernatural #spn #fluffy with angst #schmoopy spn smut #happy ending #Dean winchester #elle em bee

[scarlet--wiccan]

I’m guessing for the queercodinh thing they were referring to the “love is for souls not bodies” line and a bunch of other stuff in her & visions relationship and the vision & the scarlet witch books

Personally speaking, I don't put a lot of stock in the "queer" reading of Wanda and Vision's relationship, especially not in regards to that line of dialogue. I'm not saying that it isn't a valid reading, and I do feel some resonance, but to me, the struggles that they face as a couple, particularly in the 80s V&SW books, feels more like a racial allegory.

Race in Vision & the Scarlet Witch is a tough subject. First of all, there are several Black characters who are treated quite poorly, particularly Nekra and Black Talon. Wanda and Pietro are explicitly confirmed to have a Romani birth mother in this series, but the way it's handled is... comically offensive.

So, this is a deeply flawed text, but one of the core challenges that Wanda and Vision face is their desire to fit in and build a life for themselves in this (white) American suburb without compromising their own identities and the things that make them unique. The alienation and pushback that they receive is a response to this perceived otherness, which, to me, distinctly echoes xenophobia and racism. Wanda is a textually racialized character, whose perception as both a mutant and a witch read as a stand-in for her foreignness and cultural differences-- with witchcraft and magic being closely entwined with Romani depictions. Vision is bit more complicated-- it's been noted by other writers, who are more scholarly than me, that his efforts to prove himself as a human being and fit into human society often follow vectors of racial assimilation in white America.

Anyways, speaking as a second-generation American of Romani descent, the tension between assimilation and authenticity, along with the delicate navigation of conditional privilege and Wanda's desire for security and home, are the most profound "minority metaphor" aspect of these books. So, that's where I usually land.

Giant-Size Avengers #4

Regarding "love is for souls, not bodies," the thing that a lot of people seem to forget about that scene is that Vision builds up to confessing his feelings for Wanda by confirming his own identity as a man, and not even in a trans way-- he's recently received more information about how he was made, which allows him to more confidently assert his identity as human. It's an emphatically heterosexual moment. Again, you can take all of this as some kind of LGBT allegory, or intentionally read it that way and see what meaning you find, but I absolutely don't believe that this scene reads as queer coding.

#vision & the scarlet witch (1985) #vision & the scarlet witch (1983)

[mostly-mundane-atla]

i recently watched two soft things, two hard things, and i was wondering if you had anything to share on inuit culture regarding being lgbt?

So. I'm going to write out a list of all the relevant things I know re: Inupiat (may be relevent to Canadian Inuit or may not be, i don't know, i'm not one of them, i specify Inupiaq for a reason) culture and our modern idea on falling outside cisnormative and heteronormative social expectations.

We didn't have a full written language until like around the 1940s and it wasn't standardized until like the 1980s. Things like laws, philosophies, histories, opinions, and correspondences had no contemporary written record.

There wasn't really any interest in preserving these things in writing until after we had already been pretty heavily Christianized.

The traditional culture was incredibly homosocial, men spent much of their time with other men and women with other women.

This included young unmarried men sometimes living in the qargi rather than their parents' homes; being brought food by their mothers and sleeping nearly or entirely nude in the same room with all the other young men living there at the time. No written language means no diary entries or letters detailing what happened if anything other than platonic socializing and cohabitation.

Establishing and maintaining sincere and intimate friendships with people of the same sex was expected of both women and men. The Inupiaq word for friend pretty directly translates to "inseparable other half" and some of the friendships in stories border on our modern understanding of flirtation. Again: no diary entries, no letters.

Plural marriage was also allowed for women and men. The aforementioned homosocial culture means the plural spouses were more likely to spend time with each other than their shared spouse. If the shared spouse died, the plural spouses may spend time living with each other with redistributed domestic duties before moving on to marry someone else. Like the other two examples; no diary entries, no letters.

Marriage was understood to mean a husband and wife (or husband and wives, or husbands and wife) living together, contributing to the same household, with the intention of having children. There was no deeper spiritual meaning, love was not a requirement, and it was not considered an unbreakable bond. Unhappy marriages could be divorced and not taking in one's own child after they divorced was consider a major dick move in the traditional culture.

Romantic love in general was not overly glamorized. The idea that being in love will always inspire you to be a better person was never part of our culture and many stories caution against the violently destructive nature of romantic jealousy

P in v intercourse had cultural significance outside of pleasure and reproduction. It was used to seal contracts of allegiance, typically through wife exchange, where two men would sleep with each other's wife and consider each other as prioritized as blood family.

Family planning was the default, two to three years between pregnancies was prefered, though I don't know whether this was through alternative sex acts, contraception, or some extremely reliable timing method.

Pronouns and names were ungendered.

The traditional belief is when you inherit a name from someone who died, as was the custom and continues in some capacity today, they live on as you. You didn't only inherit their name but allegedly their memories and skills. Their relatives would lovingly refer to you as that same dead relative. This would happen regardless of whether you were the same sex as your past life and namesake.

Crossdressing was not unheard of.

The Inupiaq language word that describe a woman as flirty and the one that describes a man as effeminate share a root.

It's not very definitive about what it was like to be gay in the traditional culture, but since even the equivalent of the cultural understanding and expectations of cisgender heterosexuals are so different, the idea of what it means to be queer in gender or sexuality and how anyone should feel about it might be different too. I think if you asked a pre-assimilation Inupiaq guy if he was gay he'd ask you why you're gossiping so loud and scaring away the fish.

#response #eskimo on main

[scintillyyy]

why i fully believe tim drake has a fundamentally secure attachment style

so here it is. i am explaining my thoughts fully as to why i believe tim drake, contrary to popular belief, actually has a fairly secure attachment style and what that means.

now to preface this: i am not an attachment expert by any means. i have just done a lot of reading and research into attachment theory because it's fascinating to me. it's v interesting and so misunderstood.

and another preface: i will largely be using general terms of mother and primary caretaker throughout this meta. this is mainly because the vast majority of initial attachment theory research focuses in on the mother/child relationship where the mother is the primary caregiver and because it's easier to relate the research to tim's experience growing up of having a mother and a father. obviously, not all attachment has to stem from a mother/child relationship and mothers don't have to be the primary caregiver, and aren't always. there are so many different family dynamics out there that aren't just heterosexual marriages and that's fantastic! kids can have more than one mother! kids can have more than one father! infants can and will form attachment with a primary caregiver regardless of sex or gender. just for the sake of this meta i'll be using those terms interchangeably. it just makes things a little easier for me.

anyways buckle in, cause once i start talking about attachment i am incapable of shutting up.

so what is attachment, exactly? i'll start by telling you what it's not. it is not synonymous with love or affection. attachment is not a measure of how much a child likes someone or loves someone. it's not a measure of how much time is physically spent with a child. a child's attachment style isn't even a measure of how good or bad of a parent someone is. it's possible for a child to be securely attached to somewhat emotionally distant parents or parents who have to be physically away due to jobs for weeks or months at a time, or insecurely attached to very loving and present parents. (this is why i love it so much, it's so interesting what it really is)

this study defines attachment as one specific and circumscribed aspect of the relationship between a child and caregiver that is involved with making the child safe, secure and protected.

so attachment isn't necessarily about how we personally feel about another person, but about how we feel about and conceptualize our relationship to another person and how that relationship in turn makes us feel. it's a general sense of security in the relationship with the primary caregiver. a general sense of trust that the relationship the child has with his primary caregiver is a fundamentally safe one that will usually meet the infant's needs. a relationship that the infant can fall back and return to when he starts to interact with and explore his environment.

and the important relationship that the infant learns to conceptualize between him and his primary caregiver is that the caregiver is a secure base from which the child can explore from and return to as needed and that the caregiver in turn will meet the child's need for connection when the child asks for it.

attachment is primarily formed in the first year as an infant and then the next few years as a toddler. and the attachment formed in those early years is a foundation for the child's future relationships - when the child's initial relationship with his primary caregiver is secure, it allows him to extrapolate that security and general sense of trust to his future interpersonal relationships. and once attachment is formed in these critical years...it largely doesn't change. it can, of course (usually more negatively than positively based on experiences as an older child or adult), but these core ideals of how infants learn to feel about relationships through their initial relationship with their primary caregiver largely stays very stable through their lives.

and it's important to note here that the caregiver's constant physical presence isn't required to create this attachment or be considered the infant's secure base by the infant. ainsworth herself noted that even mothers who returned to work (so long as the child were generally well cared for when the mothers were gone) were still the secure base of their children. it's mostly about the maternal sensitivity to the relationship when she is present versus always being physically with the child.

now, i know, i know. this doesn't exactly sound like the drakes (it definitely doesn't sound like jack, but honestly. jack's terribleness doesn't matter so much when it comes to this. that's it's own set of issues i'm not going into.) this is more about janet, and how it's possible that janet was able to be not a great parent yet still manage to give her son a secure attachment style. it's possible.

so, now we need to swerve and really dig deep into what is attachment theory, to better our understanding. attachment theory is a theory concerning relationships between humans and the idea that young children/infants need to form a bond with at least one primary caregiver for normal social and emotional development. created by john bowlby who was working with orphans after wwii and noticed that young orphans without a loving mother substitute after losing their parents were just intensely emotionally suffering from the loss. they were truly traumatized by the loss of their mothers in the war and those who were sent to live with loving family who had a mother substitute after the loss of their own fared much better than those who ended up in orphanages, he had this idea that maybe, just maybe, children formed these very deep and meaningful relationships with their mothers, and they needed this warm, intimate, and continuous relationship with their mothers for their overall health and security. and that it was the need for this relationship that had this immense effect on these children versus everyone within the family unit being their own, individual island whose relationships didn't have much importance or effect on them was a big idea. and not just this, but there needed to be enjoyment (we'll come back to this) as a requirement for healthy relationship development.

and this radical idea was a huge, huge departure from what was traditionally thought of children at the time. i'm serious. people did not believe him at first. the prevailing idea was that parental love was fairly insignificant to their children, and children were driven primarily by need for food. they didn't love their parents because they were their parents, need for physical fulfillment was simply masquerading as love. this idea that children were almost acting to love their parents because they would get their physical needs filled in return. under this idea, there would be no difference between children sent to orphanages and children sent to family because it wouldn't matter, so long as they were fed and clothed basically. the idea that children had these more complex emotional need for an ongoing relationship with a primary caretaker for their mental health and that it was the relationship versus individual state of mind that was important was laughable.

anyways, mary ainsworth joined bowlby's research team at the tavistock clinic and though she initially thought he was full of shit, she quickly came around to his ideas. so when she followed her husband to uganda (he was working on a project of his own. he was also an asshole and they eventually got divorced but that's neither here nor there) she did a longitudinal field study on 26 Ganda mothers and children, initially planning to look at a weaning practice she had heard about where they send the child away to live with family for a few days until they "forget the breast" and thought she might compare traumatic versus nontraumatic separation of the child from the parent to better understand bowlby's idea of attachment. this weaning practice ended up not being quite like she had been told and instead she ended up unintentionally giving us one of the most important study on mother/child relationships ever created, the precursor to the basic underpinning of the entirety of attachment research and gave us our fundamental attachment patterns. 

side note: mary ainsworth was extremely well loved by the families she studied. she had a ton of respect for them and their culture, learned their language so she could communicate with them. the way she wrote about them was filled with loving, attentive detail. she had a ton of affection for the families she worked with.

anyways, together, ainsworth and bowlby completely revamped how we understand mother/child relationships and how we understand children and how they learn to relate to the world around them (saying goodbye to popular freudian ideas of parent-child relationships, bye you won't be missed)

so in uganda, ainsworth found something astonishing. watching the mothers and children interact it was clear to her that she was watching a two-way relationship form. the baby attended to its mother and the mother attended to the baby in return. the baby didn't just go to the mother for food, but simply because he wanted to. she watched how the babies themselves reached out for connection and how the mothers would reach back and react to their babies overtures in return!! she realized that, amazingly, this mutually pleasing, deep, fulfilling relationship was forming between baby and mother.

so when she followed her asshat husband to baltimore after they were done in uganda, she was determined to sort through and analyze these mother-child bonds that she studied so closely. she went through her hundreds of hours of notes and observations and eventually realized that she found about 3 different relationships styles that formed between mother and infant. 57% were what she deemed securely attached, babies who knew how to use their mothers as a secure base as they explored the world around them. 25% were insecurely attached, babies who found it difficult to rely on their mothers. the rest were what she deemed not yet attached (though she would later change this classification). she also discovered that the mothers of babies she deemed securely attached tended to be excellent informants (ones who had the most insight about their children) and that the mother's overall experience of and positive feelings towards her role as a mother were some of the most important factors towards creating a secure attachment. things that didn't matter as much to attachment? things like warmth of mother or whether there were multiple caretakers, external or easily observed behaviors like feeding, playing, cuddling or discipline. what mattered most above all that was the mother's attitude, her feelings toward the relationship with her child (!!!).

ainsworth decided she wanted to test this more and decided to see if she could replicate her observations in the US. she found 26 families and she and her assistants observed them from 3 weeks on, every 3 weeks for the first year of the child's life, watching exactly how these mother-child relationships formed and how exactly the infant would behave with relative strangers compared to his mother, seeing if it was true that infants could form this special secure relationship with their primary caregiver. (side note again: these families also grew to love ainsworth quite a bit). her baltimore study was groundbreaking. not just collecting data points, this was observation and collection of relational events that they would be analyzing. and when they looked at what they found, they found that the american children had the same attachment behaviors as the ganda children, in almost the same ratio of secure to insecure. The only difference was that the american babies were less overt about their attachment behaviors than the ganda ones, which ainsworth attributed to the ganda babies not being as accustomed to strangers (especially scary white strangers like her) and thus were under more stress when she was around, activating more overt attachment behaviors. so she decided. if she wouldn't be able to observe the attachment behaviors of the infants well in the home due the the baby generally feeling safe around strangers in their own home, she'd make the situation strange and she what she could observe there. absolutely revolutionary.

thus the strange situation was born. a way to observe how infants (age 1) have learned to attach to their mothers and what they have learned to expect from their relationship over the course of the first year of their life.

It goes as follows:

The mother and baby enter the room.

The mother sits quietly on a chair, responding if the infant seeks attention, but otherwise leaving the infant to his own devices.

A stranger enters, talks to the mother then gradually approaches the infant with a toy. The mother leaves the room.

The stranger leaves the infant playing unless he/she is inactive and then tries to interest the infant in toys. If the infant becomes distressed this episode is ended.

Mother enters and waits to see how the infant greets her. The stranger leaves quietly and the mother waits until the baby settles, and then she leaves again.

The infant is alone. This episode is curtailed if the infant appears to be distressed.

The stranger comes back and repeats episode 3.

The mother returns and the stranger leaves. Reunion behavior is noted and then the situation is ended

(above taken directly from the strange situation scoring guidelines)

so what does it measure? not love. not affection. it takes into account infant temperament, but doesn't even measure that. it simply looks at how exploratory the child is in the strange environment when with the mother vs with the stranger. it measures how the infant responds to his mother, what their reunion behavior is. is the baby able to be soothed by the mother? does the baby even ask for soothing? that's what matters, not whether or not the baby cried or how much the baby appears to love his mother or if the mother was warm or anything. all it looks at is does the baby feel safe to explore with the mother present and does the baby seek comfort in his secure base in a stressful situation. and through the strange situation she settled on three separate attachment styles: ABC. 

A attachment style is deemed anxious-avoidant type. the infant will ignore or avoid the mother when she returns and will not treat the stranger as different from the mother. B attachment style is secure attachment, an infant who will explore freely when the parent is present, engages with the stranger while the parent is present, is distressed when the parent leaves, and happy when they return-is able to be soothed. C attachment style is anxious-resistant. the infant will be very distressed when the mother leaves, but ambivalent when the mother returns. within these groups, ainsworth also had multiple subtypes (2 for A, 4 for B, 2 for C) that accounted for differences how security or insecurity appeared in babies. later, a 4th classification D for disorganized attachment style was added. ainsworth gave her blessing to this but cautioned that we need to be careful when classifying attachment solely as disorganized, because the subtypes of the original three classifications do account for possible disorganization within those three attachment styles. meaning, you can be fundamentally securely attached but still have disorganization (!!!).

so why are some infants securely attached and others not? ainsworth determined two big factors in creating an ultimately secure attachment. the first was maternal sensitivity within the first year. and this sensitivity isn't traditional sensitivity. it's more...an attunement to what the child needs/wants from the mother. a sensitive mother, for instance, will listen to her infants cues. when the infant wants to be let go to play and roam int he room, the mother will put the infant down to let the infant do that. when the baby is hungry, the mother will feed him. when the baby is tired, the mother will try to put the baby to sleep. an insensitive mother on the other hand, might try and feed the baby when the baby actually wants to play, for example. or think the baby is bored and try to play with the baby, when the baby is actually tired and wants to sleep. this attunement only really needs to correctly occur about 50% of the time (i've seen some numbers that indicate that moms only need to get their infants cues correct as little as 30% of the time for the infant to feel as though in general, his wants and needs will be met appropriately) in order for the infant to learn to trust in the relationship. the other big factor was this idea of mutual delight in the mother-child relationship. which. is just. so good. so amazing. my beloved. mutual delight? it's no surface level happy to see you sort of deal. it can't be playacted. it's not always being happy to see someone or always liking someone. it's not necessarily effusive emotion or big fanfare. it doesn't have to be excessive, it can be quite sedate.  it's this idea of feeling just this pure genuine satisfaction and pleasure from the connection of the relationship. it happens during specific behaviors and situations with the baby and it's not pride. it's just...delight. the child delights in the caregiver and in turn, the caregiver delights in the child and attachment forms. it fucks me up on every possible level. 

so, we now knew that children were capable of creating this special relationship with a primary caregiver. and what did this secure attachment mean? securely attached children were more likely to be healthier. confident. better able to coordinate friendships. increased self agency. empathetic. and grew up to have this sense of tenacity - an ability to believe in onself, stay on task, not get as frustrated. children with secure histories were more likely to believe that, much like in infancy, they can get their needs met and goals achieved through their own efforts (!!!). this idea of "grit" - achievement is a long term process, perserverance is important, the ability to continue on a trajectory despite disappointment. 

now, none of this is to say that securely attached children are perfect. securely attached children experience life as well. they can have a general sense of trust in themselves and their relationships and still have insecurities about these things. they can have self doubt. they can be securely attached and have some disorder in that attachment: the subtypes B2, B3, B4 are all types of securely attached infants who do show some disorder in their reunion episodes. a B2 infant, for instance, might be resistant to reunion at first but eventually seeks reunion with his mother and accepts contact and soothing from mother well, but doesn't necessarily fight being put back down after being picked up for soothing. a B3 infant will actively seek contact with his mother during reunion and then actively resist being put down, fighting to maintain contact with mother after separation, having increased stress over separation as a whole. a B4 infant is similar to a B3, in that they actively want contact but are less competent at asking for it from their mother and seems more preoccupied and anxious through the strange situation, though he is able to be soothed by his mother showing that there is effective co-regulation occurring and an ultimately secure attachment despite difficulties.

so obviously there are benefits to having a secure attachment but what does having secure attachment as an infant really mean for older children and adults? as infants grow, they lose their need for their secure base and have less need for this one special relationship with one specific caregiver as they enter into the world at large. so how does having a secure attachment as an infant translate into the relationships formed from childhood through adulthood?

well enter mary main. she was a student of ainsworth and she helped to create the adult attachment interview. prior to this, attachment was only able to be observed through behaviors - and it's hard to observe attachment behaviors as children get older as their emotions and feelings and ability to interact with the world gets more complex and harder to discern. with the adult attachment interview, we were finally able to see the inner workings of attachment - determining adult attachment through a person's self evaluation, through their inner informant and how they were able to conceptualize their past experiences as an adult. more so than the idea or fundamentally good or bad experiences, they were looking for how these experiences were described. did the adult interviewee have good coherence of mind when discussing their experiences? how much detail were they able to provide? how excellent (consistent in time, relevance, insightfulness, freshness) was their inner informant about their probable experience? and with this, they were able to classify three types of adult attachment (secure/autonomous, insercure/dismissing, and insecure/preoccupied) that were very analogous to the three main types of infant attachment. and what they found by doing this was amazing - attachment is largely inter-generational. attachment style is vertically transmitted from caregiver to child. a secure adult is most likely to have a securely attached child (an adult's attachment interview can predict a child's attachment style anywhere from like 67-75%). fascinating.

so secure children largely grow up to be secure adults (it's possible for attachment style to be positively or negatively affected by significant experiences, but will usually remain the same throughout life) who then go onto have secure children in a cycle. what's interesting is how the secure child extrapolates their childhood security to adulthood. once again...attachment is not really a measure of positive or negative experiences. what it is is a measure of how the child conceptualizes relationships within the world which turns into how adults perceive and trust relationships within the world. when determining if an adult is securely attached, the adult must value attachment itself, find meaning in attachment itself. avoidant or resistant adults won't necessarily do this.

so, reading all this, i'm sure you're wondering - why do i think tim has a functionally secure attachment style? none of this describes the drakes. his parents sucked and didn't love him (not true, btw) and never showed him any affection. they left him alone 2 days after he was born and were only present for about 2.5 days in his entire childhood before he wandered over into wayne manor and found his favorite person in the world jason todd and then they went to jail forever due to criminal child neglect (it physically pained me to write this btw and i am just poking fun. i really don't hate fanon that much, it's just fun for me to poke fun at).

and i won't deny that jack. well. sucked. in many ways. but even if he was neglectful and emotionally abusive...that doesn't necessarily mean that tim wouldn't be able to develop a secure attachment style. because attachment isn't about that, necessarily. and honestly, of course jack wouldn't be tim's secure base. he's jack.

janet, on the other hand. there's actually a lot of room around canon janet to be tim's secure base as a infant and toddler allowing him to develop a fundamentally secure attachment style. let's look at them at the circus - this is our best view of how tim was potentially as a toddler (his age being nebulous anywhere from 2.5-5 years, 5 years in canon, younger based on how you prefer your timeline) and he comes across as...incredibly secure. now let's look at janet's overall sensitively to tim's needs at the circus: she was afraid he'd be scared, but was incredibly accepting that he wasn't, allowing him to enjoy the circus rather than holding him tight and creating anxiety in him due to her own fears and anxieties around the situation. as far as a delight perspective? well, she certainly seems delighted that he is delighted by the trip. i think there's a lot of room here to say that it's entirely possible that janet was excited and happy and delighted in him when he was showing her he was excited and happy as an infant, that she would respond correctly when he reached out for connection as a baby allowing him to create a secure attachment style. she was, at least, somewhat attuned to his wants and needs when he was younger (not fully, though, clearly. there's a lot that she would later miss or be unaware of...but she was clearly at least aware of some things about him. and as discussed, we don't need 100% attunement for the child to feel a general sense of security with the parent figure. and janet also clearly saw tim as his own person with his own wants and needs, as evidenced by her encouraging him that he could be like dick if he wanted to. in another panel, he's shown running ahead them to get to the circus from the ticket booth - which again, to me reads as incredible security on his part: the ability to feel safe to run forwards into and explore a potentially strange and scary situation really is something only a truly secure toddler would do. he can do that because he knows his secure base is with him!!

and now i want to look at after janet was killed and jack was in his coma. here we have tim at his father's bedside. what's important to me is what tim is saying. he's telling his father how scared he is. he is REACHING OUT for connection in the way a secure child fundamentally would in the wake of a tragedy. obviously, jack can't reach back...coma, you know? but the important piece is tim, here.

it's just. super important to me. so tim at 13/14 with his empathy, confidence, tenacity, ability to persevere through disappointment (tim going to save batman and vicki vale from scarecrow even knowing it could cost him robin since he's still on probation and batman told him not to but it's the right thing to so he does it anyways knowing it could cause him great disappointment comes to mind) shows a lot of traits that are generally associated with securely attached children.

and tim, when recollecting his parents, actually shows a lot of clarity, detail, and excellence when discussing time spent with his parents

now, obviously, the memory is not super fantastic, though not terrible, and actually does point to his parents misunderstanding his wants and needs, but the way he's able to recall and and discuss it imo point to a secure attachment style. the reporting is detailed excellent, which is more important that the subject matter because again. this is not about how good or bad of parents the drakes were, but how tim valued his experience and relationship with them and the importance he placed on their relationship despite their failings. that's attachment. the importance of the relationship.

now i definitely think that tim wasn't a perfectly securely attached B1 baby or child. i would say that it's likely that he does have disorder in his attachment style from his upbringing (long physical absences by parents, emotional neglect, abuse from jack) that certainly increased due to his experiences as robin, but despite that his attachment style can still be secure at its heart. this disorder means that, yes, he does have insecurities about his personal relationships and he does have trouble reaching out for emotional connections at time and he might feel like he has to earn love or affection. but despite this, i see tim as someone who fundamentally values attachment and values his relationships.

or, as bethany saltman would say in chapter 28 of her book strange situation:

(psst: if you have any interest in attachment science, this book is an amazing jumping off point. this entire book is my main citation for the first half of this meta, i summarized a lot of key points and information about ainsworth from here)

ayways, why do i feel like despite his personal insecurities, tim values attachment and relationships so much?

well, he clearly does. core characteristic through his series is how important he believes connection and relationships are imo. but also. you know.

(i can't help myself). hi. enter dick grayson. if there's anything that proves to me that time has a fundamentally secure attachment style it's his entire post-crisis relationship with dick grayson. tim feeling secure enough to reach out to dick whenever he needed to at first. the amount of trust tim is able to put into his relationship with dick, the amount of value tim puts into their brotherhood relationship, how important tim thinks it is? it absolutely points to a fundamentally secure attachment style, that tim is able to create such a strong an secure relationship (he also does this with helena, with young justice...it's a running theme with him, the secure connections he's able to make).

and the rockiness from early red robin to their eventual re-connection and affirmation in RR#12 is absolute proof of the security of the dick and tim relationship. because even when there's rupture in the relationship - the absolute trust in and valuing of the relationship remains. and that's what secure attachment is - the ability to trust in and value a relationship, even if things aren't going that well on a personal level. and tim shows his overall security in this run actually exceedingly well despite, uh, how not great he's doing. when he returns to gotham he REACHES OUT FOR CONNECTION with dick when he asks dick to trust him anyways after janet died dick became tim's secure base. he REACHES OUT FOR CONNECTION with his friends, trusting in their relationship, trusting that they will meet his expectations of their relationship and help, reaching back to him because reaching out. and THAT is a fundamentally secure attachment style right there.

tim <3 attachment <3 i could probably go even longer about his various different relationships but this is long enough already

general citations for this: the strange situation's scoring guidelines, bethany saltman's book strange situation, mary ainsworth's patterns of attachment

#tim drake #batman #dc #attachment science my beloved #you know what #dick and tim #because that relationship is so important to me #and is a big part of why i think the way i do about tim's attachment style

[cookierunconfessionblog]

[COOKIE RUN CONFESSION BLOG] is open and available.

(Wednesday, December 13 posted).

{Update response pls read= Sunday, December 31, 2023 at 22:38 posted by fennel }.

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[femmespoiled]

The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader by Joan Nestle

ID - Image 1 - text reading:

"Every time I speak at a lesbian-feminist gathering, I introduce myself as a femme who came out in the 1950s. I do this because it is the truth and it allows me to pay historical homage to my lesbian time and place, to the women who have slipped away, yet whose voices I still hear and whose V-necked sweaters and shiny loafers I still see. I do it to call up the women I would see shopping with their lovers in the Lower East Side super-markets, the femme partners of the butch women who worked as waiters in the Club 82. I remember how unflinchingly the femme absorbed the stares of the other customers as she gently held onto the arm of her partner. Butches were known by their appearance, femmes by their choices. I do it in the name of the wives of passing women whose faces look up at me from old newspaper clippings, the women whom reporters described as...

page number 139 "

Image 2 - text reading:

"THE PERSISTENT DESIRE

...the deceived ones and yet whose histories suggest much more complicated choices. And if femmes seemed to be "wives" of passing women, the feminine protectors of the couple's propriety, it was so easy to lose curiosity about what made them sexual heretics, because they looked like women. Thus femmes became the victims of a double dismissal: in the past they did not appear culturally different enough from heterosexual women to be seen as breaking gender taboos, and today they do not appear feminist enough, even in their historical context, to merit attention or respect for being ground-breaking women."

END ID

#sharing the knowledge series #bellas butch/femme tag #the persistent desire

[jassygay]

here she is…. Meet Mila!!! A Muslim oc :D

this post is for Muslims if you seeing this, I hope you like her ^v^

with discussion

Not good at writing💀💀💀💀💀 so yea she is heterosexual don’t hate cuz for my followers or Mutuals that had Muslims followers knows that Muslims don’t support or be part of LGBTQ but I didn’t care about it I just want to give Muslims love that’s it cuz they get hates like other religions for this blog is allow anyone who is any religion (a few Muslims support lgbtq but didn’t be part of it)

#art #oc #characters #jassygay #islam #muslim #Muslim oc

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

Ralph what do you think are the most potentially detrimental forces affecting Harry’s public image at the moment? There are those rumors (from a v unreliable source) about a superbowl halftime show which would really force him front and center in American pop-culture.

Anon 2: Can you explain more about what you mean when you say 'there are real questions about Harry's public image'?

********

I don't think there are external detrimental forces anon 1 - I think basically there are two contradictions in Harry's career that are probably not sustainable forever. Four nights at Wembley says they're absolutely sustainable now, but I do think there are questions in the long term and maybe the medium term.

There are basically aspects of Harry's career that I think have contradictions that will not be able to hold forever. Although I think it's really hard to tell when things will change for him in a meaningful way.

The first, which is discussed reasonably often is his desire to engage with queer culture, not discuss his sexuality and perform heterosexuality. I think the external environment plays a huge role how difficult it is to hold those various aspects, but I also think there are contradictions even outside the unfortunate fact that people believe that 'queerbaiting' exists and that it's useful intervention in the world to name things you think are 'queerbaiting'.

The other aspect of this is that Harry doesn't say very much - he doesn't say very much musically and he says even less as a person. This has lots of advantages, because it allows people to project a lot onto him. But it cannot last forever - Harry is not a gas who can expand to fill any space. He does have to occasionally exist in a form that people can react to.

It seems like neither him or his team are particularly good at identifying the risks in that moment. Harry was saying 'things like this don't happen to people like me' - at many many shows and I was writing 'what are you talking about Harry?' in my tags each time, before he said it at the Grammys and lots of people who are much less generous than me assumed they knew what he was talking about.

The post Grammy backlash was singificant and I think that shows that there is plenty of fertile ground for anti-Harry sentiment. But because he was on tour at the time he knew that it hadn't impacted on his core fan base. But there's a question of how it's impacted how he's seen and understood, which hasn't been tested - and also when any of this does affect his core fanbase?

#I think the question of when does lots of people yelling on line matter #is one that is very hard to get a handle on #because so often it doesn't #(which is what touring shows Harry) #But then sometimes it does #As we saw with Don't Worry Darling #And I don't think anyone has a good model for knowing which is which #Another factor #is that the more I follow celebrities #the more I think that some responses matter more to them than we can ever imagine #Oh Harry #I still think the most you've ever said #is that you want to be someone who doesn't care what people think #but you don't think you are

[androgynealienfemme]

"Every time I speak at a lesbian-feminist gathering, I introduce myself as a femme who came out in the 1950s. I do this because it is the truth and it allows me to pay historical homage to my lesbian time and place, to the women who have slipped away, yet whose voices I still hear and whose V-necked sweaters and shiny loafers I still see. I do it to call up the women I would see shopping with their lovers in the Lower East Side supermarkets, the femme partners of the butch women who worked as waiters in the Club 82. I remember how unflinchingly the femme absorbed the stares of the other customers as she gently held into the harm of her partner. Butches were known by their appearance, femmes by their choices. I do it in the name of the wives of passing women whose faces look up at me from old newspaper clippings, the women whom reporters described as the deceived ones and yet whose histories suggest much more complicated choices. And if femmes seemed to be "wives" of passing women, the feminine protectors of the couple's propriety, it was so easy to lose curiosity about what made them sexual heretics, because they looked like women. Thus femmes because the victims of double dismissal: in the past they did not appear culturally different enough from heterosexual women to be seen as breaking gender taboos, and today they do not appear feminist enough, even in their historical context, to merit attention or respect for being ground-breaking women. " "The Femme Question", by Joan Nestle, The Persistent Desire, (Edited by Joan Nestle), (1992)

#lesbians #lesbianism #lgbt #lgbtq+ #history #lgbt history #lesbian history #butch femme #femme #femme lesbian #the persistent desire

[pleckthaniel]

Wait but I want to hear more about Orsino being fay and how the adaptations erase that though 👀 If you don’t mind of course!

I will take any opportunity to talk about gay shakespeare! Thank you for asking!

Note: I usually refer to Viola/Cesario with they/them pronouns. Although they are most likely meant to be interpreted as a cis woman, part of the beauty of the character is that they can also easily be interpreted as nearly any stripe of trans*, so I choose to refer to them this way to emphasize that ambiguity.

So for a bit of background: Twelfth Night is probably Shakespeare's queerest play. The title itself refers to a long-standing tradition of anything-goes revelry at the end of the Christmas season. The play itself never mentions this tradition, so we can assume it is so titled because of its thematic concern with chaos and ambiguity. Beyond Orsino, the play is rich with queer coding (and I do feel comfortable calling it coding, given that Shakespeare was very likely bisexual himself), which is frequently get erased or played down in adaptations. Orsino is just one fragment of the larger story of this play and how society has interpreted it.

Now my research is limited and a few years old, but to my knowledge, scholars still debate whether Orsino was ever actually "in love" with Olivia. I'd like to point to his "hart" speech in Act 1, Scene 1. The play literally opens with Orsino saying:

"If music be the food of love, play on. / Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting / the appetite may sicken and so die."

So he's trying to so overwhelm himself with romantic imagery that he gets sick of it and moves on from Olivia. That's a pretty unusual way to talk about a woman you're saying you want to marry! Throughout the speech, there's this weirdly dark undertone. Every word or phrase that seems loving is immediately followed and contrasted by imagery that evokes not just death, but violence. Notice also how he talks about his first meeting with Olivia:

"That instant was I turned into a hart / and my desires, like fell and cruel hounds, / e'er since pursue me."

"Hart" is obviously a pun on the word "heart," but the more important thing here is that it's an old-fashioned term for a stag. He's talking about his pursuit of Olivia as a hunt, but positioning himself as the one being hunted. This use of metaphor suggests, also, that if Orsino allows the pursuit to end - i.e., actually marries Olivia - he will die.

The headline is that, IMO, this speech makes much more sense to me from the perspective of Orsino being gay than him being straight. If he's straight, we have to question why he's talking about this in such melodramatic terms, and why he seems to be having to convince himself to want Olivia. If he's gay, though - especially if even he doesn't realize it yet - then it makes sense for him to both be invested in creating a heterosexual relationship, while also seeming to resent the idea, and worrying that marriage will cause him to lose some important facet of his identity.

That being said, all we can really glean directly from this speech is that Orsino intends to marry Olivia, but doesn't really love her. The opening image of the play is that of a man struggling to process his complex feelings about the institution of heterosexual marriage. There's an ambiguous queerness to that which I believe is intended to set the tone and focus the audience's attention.

Now, I could talk pretty extensively about Orsino's interactions with Viola/Cesario throughout the play. Thing is, whether or not Orsino knew about V/C's crossdressing is very ambiguous, and it's commonly argued that he was aware of the whole situation from the start - which would mean that his flirting with V/C would be evidence of heterosexuality. I don't agree with this interpretation personally, but it is a valid one based on the textual evidence.

The really important thing when it comes to Orsino's sexuality & attraction to Viola/Cesario comes in his final speech, which also happens to be the ending speech of the play. Basically as soon as V/C reveals themselves as a secret crossdresser, Orsino proposes to them. The scene moves on to wrap up subplots, and then, in the final words of the entire play, Orsino tells V/C:

"We will not part from hence. Cesario, come - / for so you shall be while you are a man / But when in other habits you are seen, / Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen."

In short, he's declaring that, so long as Cesario continues to present as Cesario, he will refer to them as Cesario - and when they present as a woman, he'll refer to them as Viola. Basically, Orsino has stumbled into a winning play - he can continue to view his spouse as a man, while also reaping the political benefits of having a wife.

It's also important that V/C themselves has no say in this and never gets the chance to respond, since the play ends shortly after. Many readers - rightly - interpret V/C as genderqueer in part because the play ends with an affirmation of their identity as Cesario. But it's Orsino who affirms this, and feminist scholars have sometimes interpreted that affirmation as a method by which he speaks for and controls V/C. These scholars rarely question why a heterosexual man would wish his wife to dress and present as a man. Maybe Orsino is talking over V/C here, but if so, that doesn't erase the fact he'd clearly rather be attracted to Cesario than Viola.

Another small thing I want to mention about the ending is that we don't see the wedding. That might not seem significant, unless you're very familiar with Renaissance plays. At that time, comedies were expected to end with marriage. You see this in a lot of other Shakespeare comedies, like Much Ado or As You Like It. No matter how tangled - or queer - the situations get, a marriage symbolized the end of that chaos. Sorta like the Hays Code about how gay people can't get happy endings, this trope could be used as a tool of both portrayal and erasure.

Twelfth Night, though, ends with the promise of marriage, technically fulfilling the trope; but in direct defiance of genre convention, we don't see the wedding and as a result, the chaos doesn't actually end. Viola/Cesario ends the play as Cesario - compare that to As You Like It, where the crossdressing female lead, Rosalind, ends the play in a wedding dress. Symbolically, the lack of wedding is a rejection of heteronormativity and further emphasizes how queer V/C and Orsino's relationship is.

Generally, adaptations don't focus much on Orsino. That's fair, because all of the other leads hold up as characters much better than him in the 21st century. But the result is that the ambiguities of his sexuality are usually ignored (in full-text adaptations, like the 1996 film with Helena Bonham-Carter) or taken out of the story entirely (in rewritten adaptations, like She's the Man).

Adaptations also usually ignore that crucial lack of a wedding at the end of the play. In the 1996 film, the wedding is explicitly portrayed, and Viola/Cesario ends the story as Viola. She's the Man does something very similar: Viola finally gives in to her mother's demands to become a debutante, and the film literally ends with a parade of heterosexual pairings in gender-conforming dress. I'm not criticizing these films, because these are logical conclusions to their stories. But these endings are a pretty direct pair of middle fingers to the ambiguity and queerness the original play so cherished.

All in all, it's a gayass play, and Orsino is really just the tip of the iceberg. There's Antonio and Sebastian's thing, the possibility of Olivia's queerness, Viola/Cesario's gender... Viola/Cesario's sexuality... the fact that the villain of the play is literally a sexually repressed Puritan... and probably more. If you're interested, I strongly recommend you check out some published queer scholarship on the subject.

Quotes are from the Folger Shakespeare: https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/twelfth-night/read/

#q #scout talks #anonymous #just english major things <3 #scout.txt

[autolenaphilia]

I'm not American, but I'm interested in how American history and politics. And I'm of course not unaffected by US politics either, it's a superpower. And I do have friends living there.

And one thing I find fascinating and horrifying is how the constitution and supreme court in the US works. Basically the USA runs on one of the oldest constitutions in the world still in use. My country Sweden by comparison got its current constitution in 1974 (and the 1809 constitution it replaced was also at the time one of the oldest constitutions still in use in the world at the time).

The US constitution was written by rich 18th century cishet white men, and naturally is intended to protect their interests. It doesn't protect women and literally allowed for slavery. It's a product of 18th century "classical" liberalism.

And as those groups in the US excluded by it started demanding their rights, in ways that couldn't be ignored by the system, it had to be changed, amended and reinterpreted. The reconstruction amendments are the most obvious of these, to account for black people being more than slaves. It was basically expanding the definition of liberalism, to account for democracy, to make the definition of freedom for the individual also apply to women and people of colour and queer people.

There was also reinterpretation of what the constitution means. It's a very old document, so in order to apply it to modern conditions, a lot of judicial interpretation is needed. This is how a lot of progressive supreme court decisions were made, like Roe vs Wade and Lawrence vs Texas. What the judges behind those decisions did was decide that the language protecting the freedom and rights of the individual in the US constitution also applied to women and gay people. That they were people just as heterosexual men are, and thus deserving of rights and freedom. So the constitution was reinterpreted to mean bodily autonomy for women and their right to have an abortion, and the right for gay people to not be arrested for having gay sex.

This viewpoint among American judges is called the living constitution. Even if the original makers of the constitution intended that the people guaranteed rights were cishet white men, it should be reinterpreted according to a more modern liberal definition of who are people guaranteed rights.

It's still liberalism, of course, all caught up in the liberal idea of the capitalist state guaranteeing rights. It's an expansion of liberalism, rather than a rejection of it. It's easy for socialists to be cynical about such things. But they also meant real improvements in the lives of women, people of colour and queer people. It's how the US as a nation has not remained stuck in the 18th century, despite having a constitution that old. Liberal democracy ought to be replaced by a socialist democracy, but it's an improvement compared to the systems it replaced in the west.

That's why the legal reasoning of conservative judges is scary in how it barely hides what it intends to do. It's called "originalism" and it openly says that the constitution should only be interpreted according to the intentions of its creators. And that intention is that only cishet white rich men deserve those rights and freedoms the constitution guarantees. They aren't entirely open about that, but that's the only realistic way to interpret originalism.

So when the conservative originalist dominated Supreme court overturned Roe v. Wade, that is basically the reasoning they went with. Abortion is not protected by any part of the constitution, because the relevant parts of the constitution defending individual rights could not have been intended by their creators to encompass women and their right to abortion. The right to have an abortion is not "deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition." as they put it.

Of course this is a violent denial of women's bodily autonomy, and that's the point. Their reasoning is that the creators of US constitution did not view women as people, deserving of rights, and thus women can have no constitutional rights today, in the modern US.

So yeah, that's the horror of the Supreme court. It basically decided women were not people with a right to bodily autonomy. And it's probably going to keep on deciding that people who are not cishet white men are by definition not people deserving rights according to the US constitution. They are probably going to overturn marriage equality and Obergefell vs Hodges. Maybe Lawrence too.

I'm not American, so I can mostly look on as horrified outsider. I guess the lesson here is: If you try to run a modern liberal democracy with rights for marginalized people on a constitution from the 18th century that was never intended for such a society, you are always going to have compatibility problems like this.

A constitution from the 18th century is always going to need radical interpretation to apply to 21st century problems, which means a lot of power is given to unelected constitutional courts. The judiciary are meant to be civil servants, following the laws laid down by elected politicians, but when the practical application of basic constitutional laws are in doubt, they have a lot of leeway to interpret it as they will, and thus power. Liberal democracy is again not my preferred political system, but it's better than a lot of the more reactionary alternatives and this is not a good way to run it.

It's interesting how the US constitution has survived this long, but it's dangerous anachronism rather than quaint. It's like trying to use an early 80s IBM computer running DOS as your primary computer in 2022.

#the us constitution #don't worry i'm probably going to write a rant about how sweden sucks soon

[triviareads]

ARC Review of A Holly Jolly Ever After by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone

Premise:

Winnie Baker, a former child star with no career prospects after her divorce, is tapped to play the lead in a Hope Channel (After Dark) Christmas movie alongside former boybander and current pizza franchise owner Kallum Lieberman, who will be playing a sexy Santa Claus. The problem is, Winnie has no idea how to go about being sexy on camera...

My review:

I loved the concept of an inadvertently sexy Hallmark movie in A Merry Little Meet Cute, and it seems so did the world at large because now Hope Channel is putting out a softcore Santa biopic (complete with magical peppermint cum) which I think is just inspired.

Winnie grew up in a conservative, Christian environment and was a child star which resulted in her loved ones and the media expecting her to maintain this perfect, god-honoring image. She's recovering from purity culture and has never experienced sexual pleasure due to internalized shame and one terrible partner. Enter Kallum, serial bridesmaid fucker and fresh from a leaked (and later licensed) sex-tape. After an awkward fake orgasm on set, Winnie requests sex lessons from Kallum at first to find her own pleasure, and then it rapidly evolves into them hooking up on the reg.

Similar to Winnie's sexual awakening, she also has this moment of questioning the compulsory heterosexuality she was raised with (at a Christmas-themed strip club lol), and while it didn't go much further than that, I did like the call out.

I liked Kallum more than I was expecting. I'm not usually a fan of himbo heroes, but his easygoing nature and unconditional acceptance of Winnie as she is was lovely to read. He's never infantilized the way some heroes of this persuasion are; a decent portion of the narrative is about him learning to own up to shit he wouldn't have in the past. I also liked the dad bod rep— body diversity in heroes is even rarer than with heroines, so reading about a man who is big, has a belly, and can absolutely get it was a nice change of pace.

I really liked the friendship between Kallum, Nolan, and Isaac. Male friendships is something I don't see often in romance novels. They've been through a lot and are often separated from each other, but they still have the kind of relationship that allows them to hit each other up after months of no communication, and then an hour later they're crying together about unrequited love.

In terms of conflict, I was on the edge of my seat for most of the second half waiting for the ex-husband or Winnie's uber-conservative parents to fuck shit up, but what we got instead was this really interesting moment of delayed uncertainty on Winnie's part regarding the suitability of Kallum as a long-term partner. I wasn't entirely sold on the inciting incident that caused Winnie's doubts, but it felt like such a valid fear and overall, Sierra and Julie did a good job of exploring the potential perils of a himbo partner.

The sex:

I loved reading about Winnie experimenting with masturbation and figuring out what worked for her. It was written in a way that was curious and joyful despite her delayed sexual exploration thanks to being entrenched in purity culture for so long. Basically, the Peppermint Stick vibrator was the gingerbread-scented hand lotion of this book (iykyk).

And once Winnie finally gets going, she and Kallum can't be stopped. There's a subtle emphasis on p-in-v sex not being the be-all-end-all (or a given, at first) which kinda fit the vibe of Winnie's almost high school-esque sexual experimentation with Kallum. Later on, there is, in fact, the rare contemporary romance butt stuff (do I think there should have been pegging at some point? perhaps).

Overall:

I had a lot of fun reading this Christmas-themed romance! It was sweet and sexy, and I look forward to reading the next book which I'm guessing is about Tragic Widower Who Assumes His Late Wife Wanted Him To Have That Threesome, Isaac Kelly.

Thank you to Avon and Harper Voyager and NetGalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my review.

#arc #arc review #netgalley #sierra simone #julie murphy #contemporary romance #avon books #avon #Harper Voyager #romance novels

[dgcatanisiri]

“If you want to romance [same sex love interest], just roll a[n opposite sex] PC! You’re so greedy to want [additional romance option] when you already have [singular same-sex romance option]! Some people are just straight and you should just deal with it! You should respect the WRITER’S VISION!”

Not that it’s news, but dear. GOD. do I hate it when people start arguing this shit. Because really. Do you think that it’s news that “some people are just straight”? How the fuck is it greedy to want to have even the little bit of a crumb that ONE more same-sex romance option would offer, when the slice of pie that heterosexuals get is 99% of the whole damn thing? Why do I have to give up a part of my identity to play the romance that connects to me?

And you know, sometimes, that really is the kicker for me. That so many people just don’t seem to get the power and importance of experiencing a story in a way that validates your identity is. And it’s generally because they don’t NEED that validation.

I mean, I think back to my first play of Jade Empire, the first game I played that even HAD a same-sex romance option. And looking back on it from nearly fifteen years after that first run, I can tell you, it is VERY flawed as a result of that whole “the game came out in 2005, same-sex romance is still something that inherently gets the M rating” side of things. But despite all the reason I have from today’s perspective to say “this isn’t as good as it could have been if it had been released a few years later,” it’s still one of those things that just inherently makes me feel SEEN.

So why do I have to sacrifice that, just to get the romance option who fits right with me? Straight people ALWAYS get to be seen - hell, usually, they don’t even QUESTION when a romance is default into the story. I’ve never seen the straights argue that, say, Ezio’s relationship with Sofia is shallow, or that we don’t know enough about a character like Randvi. Straight people didn’t argue that there really wasn’t much reason for Starkiller to fall so in love with Juno that he’d just automatically go back for her on the Ecliptic. Mario’s motivation is so often Princess Peach, and no one asks for the relationship to be developed, it’s accepted as just a default THING. To say nothing of how many games offer optional flings, but, if they even allow same-sex encounters, which is no guarantee, the male options are significantly fewer, so it’s clear that the expectation is that a male PC is taking every woman around them to bed, not that gay people are playing.

Or, sticking to BioWare, the straights don’t mind that Liara is shoved at Shepard every chance BioWare can arrange, her relationship with Shepard emphasized over all others. Leliana has a romance mechanic so obtuse that offering her kind words can get you locked in. Both have instances of bugs where there’s an assumption of romance, and no effort has ever been made to fix them (leading me to want to put the word “bugs” in quotes...). Peebee sits on Ryder for an uncomfortably long time and unless Ryder’s played a romance through to its conclusion beforehand, will explicitly offer a hook up with Ryder.

Or we have a game like Cyberpunk, where Panam has no real, clear cut “I’m not interested” option, with a lot of assumption that a male V is romancing her from everyone around them. Meanwhile, the one gay romance in that game is not only gated behind so much in the way of progression barricades, you could be forgiven for missing him entirely, AND is framed in a way that has him still hung up on Johnny over anything else.

And there’s the fact that it’s ALWAYS same-sex romance content that gets cut. How many times have we heard about “[character] was going to be a same-sex romance, but we had to make cuts for time”? Saying nothing of things like Jacob and Jack’s same-sex romances getting cut in ME2 because of negative press from freaking Fox News...

But no. It’s always us gays who are being greedy, being demanding, being ungrateful because we didn’t HAVE to be included, and it’s just... You people just can’t seem to conceive of the fact that people not like you have to fight and drag every moment of representation we get on screen.

And they don’t listen, either. All the explanation I just poured out here, if I repeated it to any of the people who hurl this shit at any of us angry queers complaining, they’d tune out before I finished my first paragraph.

This is all just so EXHAUSTING.

#dg rants #another angry queer rant #dg gets pissed