#but queerness really does bring consciousness lol

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Hi, I think this maybe constitutes a Wales Question! So, I'm English originally, currently in my third year at Aber university, and its reputation for "that place you go to study and then never ever leave" is looking like it's holding true. I've been living with two very good friends of mine who are extremely Welsh for nearly 2 years now, and in that time I've been slowly picking up bits of Welsh culture and language (it started with me not wanting to mess up trying to pronounce the biology building name and looking like an idiot, but I got very interested from there, and plan on taking a class after I graduate).

I'm serious about wanting to live here, I've fallen in love with the town and the country ever since my knowledge of it evolved from "dragons and sheep and funny long names on road signs" that I thought as a kid, and I've genuinely enjoyed being brought into the fold and joining in stuff with my friends, But. my friends are very adamant that this means I can Be Welsh, and I'm not sure how to take it. On one hand, of course I would like to be, but I'm not sure how much I can claim that confidently- I didn't grow up here, have barely lived here for that long, and there's still a lot I don't get so I'm worried about making it weird. On the other, I think adamantly declaring myself English instead and turning them down is very very easy to take the wrong way!

As the most vocally Welsh person I am aware of on tumblr, I am humbly requesting your take on this... would it be considered unreasonable for foreigners to claim Welshness, with enough effort put in to learning ofc? It would be very nice and appreciated to get a second opinion :)

Diolch yn fawr iawn!

Okay so obviously I am slapping on a HUGE caveat here that I am No One, I am just another stranger at the shouting match who sometimes has some thoughts about things I see and the ability to amusingly compare things to other things. What follows are the lukewarm takes of Just Some Person, and not to be taken as gospel in any way.

But also lol you did ask and I love giving opinions, I do, so let's gooooo

So first up, I do think you're slipping into the fallacy here of playing the Boxes Game with something that doesn't fit neatly into boxes, as indeed nothing about humans and people and humans being people actually does. The thing about national/cultural identity is that they aren't precise, immutable data points. 'Culture' is already quite a loose and ethereal beast - you're basically drawing a circle around a bunch of things and going "Everything in here is X Culture!", and you'll be largely right doing that; but, the edge of the circle isn't, in reality, a hard border. It's a gradient. The circle will overlap with other circles, too. And sometimes even the things in the centre of the circle turn out to be absent half the time, and it's all a bit messy. Really, it's a bell curve, and you're just looking to see what turns up most frequently, with the understanding that you only get the big picture from all the data points together.

Nationality is even fuzzier, tbh. It's a highly personal thing. I'm very Welsh - my Welshness, though, looks different even from other Welsh people in Swansea, and certainly from a Welsh person living in Caernarfon. There are definitely unifying elements; but ultimately, it's something you kind of carve out for yourself, both consciously and unconsciously.

And I bring that up because part of your question is, "At what point do I cross the line into the circle? How long do I have to wait and how much do I have to do before Welshness happens? When do I get to claim the label?"

And there's no answer to that. Not for anyone. This is an identity issue, not a hard scientific concept. Kind of reminds me of a lot of questioning folks in the queer community, in fact. Humans like boxes and labels because they're comforting, but ultimately, we fit in them about as well as angry cats.

With that said, though, it's certainly true that there is a profound and observable difference between a naturalised citizen and a long-term tourist, which I think is the root of your fears here. A Brit who likes holidaying to Spain and decides to go and live there but doesn't learn Spanish, doesn't integrate with the local community, doesn't respectfully partake of any local customs (especially if they condescendingly view the local customs as quirky or quaint, or worse, look down on them), who learns nothing of the history of the area or wider country... that Brit could live there for 40 years, could even go the whole hog and get Spanish citizenship. But they are nothing more than a long-term tourist. Part of claiming culture and nationality is that it's not a spectator sport.

But by contrast, if that Brit were to learn Spanish and use it in everyday life (even if they sometimes fell back on English, or used a funky mix like Spanglish sometimes); if they learned all the history, INCLUDING and MOST ESPECIALLY all the pressure points that mean a Brit in particular cannot do X thing or make X joke; if they integrate with the local community, helping neighbours and coming to community events; if they respectfully take part in local customs, and only add elements of their own culture after learning about the customs properly so they know which bits are important and which can be amended...

Well, that's a totally different matter, isn't it?

It sounds like you're in the latter camp. It's particularly encouraging that your Welsh friends are already adopting you, in the broody chicken fashion of Welsh Mams Everywhere, because it suggests that while you may be English, you aren't English TM (you know the type). So, that's a good start, and it certainly puts you on the path to Naturalised Citizen.

So at that point, I suppose it becomes a matter of personal comfort. You're certainly right that it's still, relatively speaking, quite a new facet of your identity that you've only just started exploring and developing. Learning Welsh, when you get round to it (check with the university by the way, Aber is very keen on helping students learn and can get you cheaper/free courses), will push you several miles down that road, because that's a big effort expenditure AND it will put you in touch with the second of Wales' two dominant cultures.

But ultimately, the label you use has to be down to what you feel fits best, and what you're comfortable with. If you aren't comfortable with 'Welsh' yet, then that's completely fine - it's not for you at the minute. Put it on a back burner. Maybe use 'British' for now? In place of 'English', which is more specific. Maybe you can say you're "from England originally", or that you were born there but live here now; both of those are accurate, but also give the statement of intent. They make it clear that, as an adult, Wales is 'home'. This is where you're choosing.

In any case... croeso i'r clwb! And a thousand thanks for learning the language, and even just for the effort you've put in so far. Even just learning the pronunciation puts you miles above most English people, in spite of it being such a basic thing to do. It's more appreciated than you can know.

Also sorry this got long lol

#WALES! #closed for cleaning on mondays #asks #long post

[fangirlmedstudentblog]

Ok so hear me out. This is legit crack headcanon at this point, but since I've been thinking about this since MLC ep 5 came out. So.

Alan and Heart bonding. Heart finding an unlikely friendly mentor thing in Alan. (Like Li ming found in Wen)

Why? I honestly have no clue other than the fact that I love First and Gemini and Fourth and also Alan and Heart and I WANT MY FAVS TO INTERACT.

I want Alan to have known very basic TSL already. Why? Maybe because he had a HoH kid be one of his relative's kids. Also Alan has a soft spot for kids because I said so. So for them Alan already knew the basic signs for hello and bye and some random stuff but not in too much depth.

So since Alan works in a bank as a loan approver thing (i don't know what it's exactly called) and Heart is soon going to the US so it's highly likely that his parents might be taking a loan and what better place than the bank Alan works at right?

And for plot reasons Li ming is there as Heart's emotional support bf and also Heart's parents are still not as fluent as Li ming in TSL so he gets to tag along. But both sit outside of the loan room.

Anyways, when Heart's parents are there they have the documents for the loan thing and I'm not 100% sure but for education loans you have to show proof of the place you have to study at and stuff. Heart's parents forget that one of the folders is with Heart and then go over to him to get the folder and that's when Alan notices the parents signing at Heart.

It piques his curiosity but doesn't really comment on it. Then Heart's mom brings Heart to thank Alan or something (listen this is legit a stream of consciousness, i haven't thought of stuff in detail so far) and Alan to everyone's surprise greets Heart in sign. And Heart, the absolute best boi that he is, lights up like a chandelier out of joy. Even Li ming looks at Alan approvingly lol.

Anyways Alan puts the incident out of his head as he focuses on his own life and getting over his heartbreak and getting to know Gaipa over the dates disguised as 'handing over documents'.

Then a few weeks later he comes across Li Ming and Heart while he's visiting Gaipa at his stall where the two are buying bubble tea. Gaipa introduces Li ming and Heart and while Alan's face does a thing when he learns of Li ming's relation to Jim he lets it go because it's not the kids fault.

Heart gets very excited to see the stranger who knows his language and greets Alan enthuastically while signing rapidly and leaving Alan all confused and an endeared Li ming to translate.

And how do Heart and Alan bond together I don't know either but they just do.

I need Alan to idk be a cool older friend to Heart, and Alan finds himself a little healed by Heart each time he smiles. (Heart's smiles are adorable I find myself healing with each one)

I don't know, I want Heart to find an older queer friend with whom he can discuss stuff like Li ming can with Wen.

It's the gemini fourth first brainrot I have to blame for this, but honestly i just want Alan to smile more, First and Gemini have rather lovely smiles that deserves praise all the time.

#this is partly also inspired by the first khao gemini and fourth interactions on s4 of safe house #I'm slowly making my way through it because it has so many of my babies in it but watching it is a trial because NO ENG SUBS #moonlight chicken the series #moonlight chicken #midnight series: moonlight chicken #headcanon #heartliming #heart x li ming #li ming x heart #alan #mlc: heart #mlc: alan #mlc: li ming #alangaipa

[goresevraq]

about your comment in that yellowjackets ask: tai isn't shown to be wealthy in the 90s tho unlike lottie and it seems that she had been having visions since before the plan crash. i feel like the show did try to say something about the structure of society (also from the writers own words) in season 1, what with jackie being the first one to die and be eaten, but there hasn't been much since; none of the girls seem to feel specially guilty or grossed out about the cannibalism or blame themselves or each other for one of them dying. it kinda feels like stuff happens and they react to it and then move on. like the birds that fell from the sky, apparently they ate them and moved on.

sorry for ranting in your inbox lol! but idk season 2 has been kind of disappointing so far because there has been little conflict among the girls that would lead to them turning into rival clans, their main dispute rn is lottie's cultish antics instead of everything else going on. it feels like whatever the writers set out to say about society, that girls could do lord of the flies and all that seemed to have stopped in season 1 so far.

anon, tumblr deleted my entire long response to this and i cannot retrieve it. hellsite. anyway bullet point response

imo it's pretty key to tai's character that she embodies a specific dream of middle class upwards mobility. it's both a result of her glaringly middle class upbringing (esp in comparison to van and tai's home lives) and her like, 'hard work get things done' attitude. there's a pretty distinctly racial context to that (i.e. black women are pressured to work twice as hard to get half as far, etc), which the show explicitly points out and problematises. see: "you're like a queer kamala", tai bringing up representation rhetoric in her chat w the intrusive rich white lady, nat constantly pointing out her money and connections, etc. in a literal diegetic sense she has more to lose than her white peers (in money, status, etc).

where it gets interesting & where i hope the show will go is what this means for tai's relationship with wilderness and civility. like you said, she's had visions/hallucinations for years, and this is p explicitly set up as 1) a condition her grandmother shares and 2) thematically yoked to caretaking and old age. what this means for 1) is that the wilderness is a uniquely hereditary sort of haunting for tai--it's the sort of vast terror that precedes her and can't be silenced with hard work and a bootstrap mentality. + tai struggles acknowledge her sleepwalking self unless it's through memories of her grandmother or secondhand accounts (she seeks external confirmation a lot, e.g. "you know how bad it gets"): in both cases her interaction with her alter is facilitated by care and external recognition.

what does it mean that this wilderness obstructs tai's ability to care for her wife and son, but provides the basis for a connection with her (white) ex? idk man but it's fascinating

WEB du bois' double consciousness comes to mind as a (possibly on the nose) reference.

she practiced land use law. she tried to leave the wilderness behind by exercising influence over how land would be portioned and commodified through the legal system. fuck!!! yellowjackets is not a subtle show and we love that for her.

haven't caught up on s2 yet but that's really disappointing to hear! it sounds like they're pulling punches when they should be pushing the tension, which. ugh. why do prestige shows always trip into this pattern lmao

afaik the only black woman on the main writing team did not return for season 2, so. hmm. hmmmmm

wait one more. can we talk about how in death tai's grandmother became the vision that she feared in life? that her grandmother joins the ranks of those haunting her?

and that tai is biracial and this is very specifically her maternal grandmother?

i love taissa turner sorry lost the plot of your ask there anon

#imo the fact is that wilderness as a concept just Does have more baggage for people of colour esp black and indigenous women #will yellowjackets handle this gracefully and add anything useful to the conversation? considering what you're saying about s2. #hmm. i hope they make a comeback let's leave it at that #yellowjackets

[cassthecringe]

are you okay? <3 free space to infodump abt noritaro. i think uve said before that u think kakyoin isnt cis, and obviously not straight, what is his attitude abt his identity? does he influence jotaro at all in being more self-accepting/open?

hi my dear friend yes i'm okay im already feeling better after talking about it (bottling things up is not good kids a good bitch can do you much good) but im still a little miffed. it will fade tho this isn't my first rodeo

also yes kakyoin. i think he is bisexual yes and as for his gender erm. so i see him as like. i dont think he'd have a term for it. it's Basically a type of bi-genderfluidity where he oscillates between agender and then bigender (both man and woman at the same time)

i think kakyoin realizes he's bi decently early for a kid who was born in the 70s and raised in the 80s. i dont think he was very shy about it or like. he's conscious he can't like be super open about it cause yknow we live in a society and he doesn't really wanna draw attention to himself over smth like that but he's not ashamed of it mostly. probably one of the only pros that the superiority complex he had as a kid gave him

i think it takes longer for him to realize his gender i dont think he actually like consciously realizes how he feels until he meets josuke and josuke brings it up once LOL. i think it really makes kakyoin realize "oh huh i have feelings about this." so he explores. like i said i dont think he'd ever find a proper term for it (he honestly honestly honestly might call himself bisexual (both his gender and the genders he's attracted to) in every way LMFAO). but yeah he's not shy about it either he's like yeah haha

AS for if this influences jotaro yeah definitely i think so. jotaro is very cagey as im sure we're all aware. his infamous insistence on being stealth and all that. i think kakyoin being so nonchalant about it all and countering jotaro's like "dont you feel shame" (he wouldn't say it in those words) with "uh no lmao? this is just how i feel" idk i think it'd be pretty novel for jotaro. also kakyoin doing all the research he does cause of course and his enthusiasm about it would pull jotaro in himself. and since kakyoin is an anthropologist and so he talks about how some identities span across cultures while some are culture-specific and all that and i think it would make jotaor feel more like, in place. like he belongs. knowing that queer experiences of all kinds have always existed and continue to exist and will always exist. anyway

this got wordy apologies i just have like a manifesto about kakyoin gender. nthank you and i love you so much yoss

#cass cries

[aesteasis]

do you have any brazilian literature recommendations :))?

ooohohoho yes i do, im glad you asked >:)) grab some snackies and a water bottle, this is gonna be a long post.

most of what i've read from brazilian literature are classics and like books that are at least decades old lol (uni life go brr), so my recommendations will probably rotate around that. so lets go!

first of all, of course, i recommend Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis (black author btw!), it wouldnt be a br lit rec if i didnt mention this one at some point. this is like the ultimate classic i'd say, but im not recommending just for that. i REALLY enjoy unreliable narrators and this book is all about it. its a novel about a guy who marries his childhood love, but suspects she's cheating on him, but yk, he's a white man from the 19th century, he thinks he's always right and is privileged af and it shows in the way he tells his story, so his opinions arent that trustworthy. and the author knew very much what he was doing, and he did it on purpose.

still about Machado, i must mention his short stories. i really really enjoy grotesque and gothic literature (think the vibes of poe, lovecraft, gogol, dostoevsky, etc) and Machado nails at it. he's also translated poe's works to portuguese back in the day, so we know for certain there's some influences in there. well, i recommend Machado in genereal, my guy really knew how to criticize society with some great witty and sarcastic comments if you know where to look.

if you want more grotesque but is tired of reading stuff written by men, i recommend Julia Lopes de Almeida (who isnt as known as she should be, she was done dirty and purposefully neglected by ABL - brazilian literary non-profit society) and Lygia Fagundes Telles. both of them have some reeeal creepy stories, just the way i like it.

now, if you're into authors who dissect the human mind and master the stream of consciousness and love to relate to the thoughts of the characters of your books, i highly recommend Clarice Linspector. no one does it like her, my girl knows how to transform thoughts into a narrative and its insane, her books are really endearing to read imo.

but if you want something that will thresh the brazilian society (or well, any third world country's society i'd say) and expose every flaw about the system, racism, misogyny, colonialism and class conflict, i recommend specifically the books Vidas Secas, by Graciliano Ramos (idk if theres a translation, but the title says Dry Lives), The Slum, by Aluísio Azevedo, and The Devil to Pay in the Backlands, by Guimarães Rosa (this one is sooo hard to read in portuguese bc it uses a lot of regionalisms from a region im not from, so hard that i actually got a copy in english to read for my finals lmao. but worry not, the english translation is much easier to understand. it also has some queer themes, both gender and sexuality wise, and its a literal masterpiece).

for poetry, i highly recommend Augusto dos Anjos, a personal favourite. im not that into poetry, but Carlos Drummond de Andrade and Cecilia Meireles are very good too.

there's so much more i could recommend, but these are the ones that come to my mind rn. idk if thats what you were thinking about, and sorry i coulnt bring anything contemporary, if thats more your vibes, but i really recommend all of these, for anyone, they're really enriching to read.

#lua answers #brazilian literature

[poridge]

sometimes I am hanging out with my straight bestie and she says things about her man and we both stop and she's just. You would hate that. this is why you're gay."

#kasjbvkjbsdvk #that's an oversimplification #but she'll be like aww man it sucks #and I'll be soooo suprised to hear it but she's like #this is normal unfortunately #a lot of women feel that way about x thing straight men do #but queerness really does bring consciousness lol

[googledocsdyke]

Do you have any thoughts/recommended texts for Cas analysis? I genuinely love the dean gender studies and I just wanna know what people might apply to Cas.

yes absolutely!! while dean studies is my first love i also deeply love cas analysis (casnalysis?) and wanna strive to do more of it. here’s some stuff off the top of my head:

1. gender, sexuality, heavenly embodiment

this is much more theological and less psychological than dean’s whole Deal because there’s so much fascinating stuff around how the angels in general experience express and conceptualise gender (@autisticandroids has a good post about angel gender & lily sunder has some regrets) but for cas in particular there’s this fascinating kind of collective fandom agreement (which i DO also agree with) that cas’ own gender kind of is gay man, that he actively chose gay manhood, but also that he’s kind of..... lacking the Insane Genderishness that dean exhibits at all times, even though he actively chose to engage in male gendering and became so comfortable housed Within Jimmy that he, as some post i saw the other day that i can’t find anymore said, “became his own body” when jimmy died. 

like on the one hand there’s an almost-canonical transness to the whole process but it also never feels fully written-into because 1) the supernatural writers for all their insanity are sometimes very boring and *most* of the time only feel interested in narratively expressing angels As Their Vessels anyways and just like leaving convenient spaces around these questions (boldest thing they ever did was hot girl cas which i WISH i had the range to unpack) 2) there’s a vague inevitabilist shrug to the whole thing since they obviously weren’t gonna recast misha collins (though they HAVE tried to get rid of him) and 3) something amorphous about cas’ entire..... personhood? makes him Empty Of Gender as a contrast to dean’s Full Of Gender (i believe it was @deanwinchestergender who said this) and like is it just the juxtaposition to dean/jensen’s whole insane Deal? or something else? 

like he actively chooses the terms of his own embodiment and yet narratively it feels like a shrug. and we’re all like “well obviously even though he’s a celestial being he was always a gay man” and like WHY. i love it idk idk much to think about! and yeah just in general the theological questions of possession and cas genuinely Becoming a man as he iterates himself consciously towards humanity it almost feels like. by doing the most boring things possible with his gender they made it interesting? idk if that makes sense.

2. discipline, free will, metanarratives

cas is like a tool (“i am not a hammer, as you say”) held in constant discipline and surveillance by the system that enmeshes him and it’s really, really fascinating to watch the way the angels hold each other to conformity. especially pre-god they kind of produce each other as foucauldian disciplinary subjects (which i posted about here) in perpetual visibility through angel radio, generating their own and each other’s conformity rather than being directly ruled through like a single centralised source of power. only the spectre of a god. and obviously cas’ whole thing is that he has ALWAYS disobeyed and the narrative affords him this psychological interiority never given to the foucauldian subject, an internal will and desire for freedom in a way that fits more with the liberal subject (super roughly and not with the same pro-capitalist implications but he has this internal drive for self-liberation. 

and that’s also where the metanarrative comes in ofc! i think it was @dykecas who said that cas is a real person written by people who hate him, and there’s this crack in the narrative (mirroring the crack in his chassis) where cas gets in, over and over, despite all the order imposed by the show’s authorfathergod. like we’ve all seen the analysis about how it was Never supposed to be this way they DID try to fire misha collins in 2012 and yet this gay man literally cannot be stopped! i think actually his appearance in scoobynatural is a neat little distillation of this — he drops into this animated world originally with a singular purpose (Save Sam And Dean) the same way he dropped into lazarus rising with a single 3-episode arc (Save Dean). huge hammer behaviour. his “utility” diminishes within the narrative (he finds that he can’t fly in the scooby doo universe) and so he is no longer a tool/means to an end that salvation moves Through. and in the process (and huge creds to @lesbianyuugi for this) he does something ENTIRELY unrelated to his original cas-as-tool aim, and learns, like, the meaning of laughter from shaggy and scooby. WHICH brings me onto the third point

3. love, queer kinship, family-making

HE’S GAY AND HE’S A DAD! i feel like a lot of tumblr throws around the term “found family” in a very flat and tropey way (which is fine it’s cute and fun no matter what!) but like . GOD there’s so much specific stuff going on here. like the way that cas (unintentionally) obliterates the midwestern white christian nuclear family (made incarnate in the novaks) which like could be uniformly portrayed as an act of deep malice and villainy but instead grows to serve as a surrogate (if imperfect/complex, but DEEPLY loving) father figure for the gay daughter who has now escaped that nuclear family/seen it destroyed depending on how you read it? like he remasters the entire concept of fatherhood and it’s a very interesting (if DEEPLY) unintentional subversion of the homewrecking non-nuclear gay trope. cas is so good because his character arc doesn’t say “look, gay people can be normal and have perfect settled families just like you” it says “gay people DON’T have normal settled families actually and they are full of love anyways! or Because of the abnormalcy itself!) 

to cite ziz lesbianyuugi again he DOES queer fatherhood in his parenting of jack particularly because it really is one of the ONLY parent-child relationships in the show that breaks the incessant cycle of abuse and control and cold indifference perpetuated by the authorfathergod (a cycle reified in 15x20 lol). like god’s treatment of cas and his siblings mirrors john’s treatment of sam and dean (particularly dean) mirrors victor’s treatment of krissy and her crew mirrors dean’s later treatment of jack. there is a CONSTANT reiteration of the story of authorfathergod (often a father tightly entwined in biological kinship) treating a child as a mechanism or a tool or a means to an end. and cas looks at ALL that he has suffered and all that he is ever known and chooses constantly to reject it with every piece of love he expresses for his child. and not to sound like the kind of academic people make fun of on twitter but there is an INHERENT queerness to that. gay love will pierce through [the veil of death/the thick silence of abuse/the mechanism of godly control/hegemonic american masculinity] and save the day

anyways here are some very haphazard recs on everything above for further reading:

angels in america (tony kushner)

histrionics of the pulpit: trans tonalities of religious enthusiasm

the public universal friend: religious enthusiasm in revolutionary america

discipline and punish (michel foucault)

friendship as a way of life (michel foucault)

the genesis of blame (recommended by @pietacastiel who has GREAT theology content in general

all about love (bell hooks)

the chapter “when hated characters talk back” in anti-fandom: dislike and hate in the digital age (is actually explicitly about cas)

also cannot recommend enough following the ppl i tagged above!! most of the unlinked stuff is available through http://libgen.li/ and bookshop is a good alternative to amazon if ur american and want physical copies

#thank you so much for this ask it was a delight to answer #spn #casnalysis #making a tag officially #gendernatural #long post

[laurelier]

okay first of all your falling/two ghosts post uhhhhhhhhhHHHHH !!!????!!!!!??????????? all of the emotions all of the above all of it thank for reminding me i have a heartbeat bc that little heart of mine was shrinking bursting jumping breaking healing

something i've also been thinking about in relation to this is how he sings she live in a kinda detached way, yk? like no falsetto, kinda almost too swingy like babe this is actually a heartbreaking song did you not get the memo. like he wants to keep it in the setlist bc it's important to him but he can't go through the motions of actually bringing it like the studio album bc it takes too much out of him?

but then he does this. and falling makes him emotional on stage, it's so so clear. and he links it with two ghosts and it's all self, self-love, self-destruction, the search of self. and these songs aren't usually linked to anything gender-y or queer in general, just songs about heartbreak, relationship issues. so maybe this is how he's found away to sing about his deep, personal thoughts and emotions in a non-straightforward, basically hidden, way. he can pump his emotion in falling and his emotion will be interpreted as heartbreak but to him it's a release of what should be in she. yk?

Almost like he’s extracting the queer energy from both of those songs and concentrating it by putting them together???!? So that the mashup gets at that gorgeous heartrending self-exploration we know and love from She??? Tears of joy, this is my shit, this is brilliant, you're brilliant.

I think what you're saying is really beautiful—that the core of what Harry's possibly wanting to express through his music can shift places, such that the meanings of his songs are constantly changing, fluid. Like, expressing different things at different times, and to certain different ears? The world's most graceful and best-soundtracked game of whackamole.

Idfk where I'm going with this, my brain is fried and I'm emooooootional but you're really just in the best way making me think about that time when H said that he'd never want to define what a song is about for anyone, because he'd never want to endanger someone's interpretation of what they hear there—this whole ask has got me thinking a) just about how generous that is of him, to purposefully and adamantly allow space for those who hear his music to see themselves in it, even if they possibly come up with interpretations that he might not identify with and b) that maybe this sentiment applies, in a way, from his end as well—that maybe his songs are as multifaceted to him as he himself is. Which sounds kind of dumb like durrr lol but idk I don't think I ever really consciously think about it like that? I think I usually think about H writing songs as like. H has feeling. H expresses feeling in song. Song then becomes record of feeling. But I wonder if writing and singing and performing songs isn't more of a constant experience of self-development rather than a gush or an outflow of expression. I don't know—I'm not one, but maybe if you're a songwriter, you hear yourself singing a song one day and you realize you wrote it in part about something you never even knew about yourself before, and that song changes for you, or shifts a little; obviously I have no idea what's in H's beautiful head, but. Your question has definitely got me thinking about that: art, all the ways we get to know ourselves, all the ways we tell ourselves about ourselves without realizing it, even if parts of us are actively trying to stop us from doing so.

In reference to this

#NOT ME GETTING TO PUT AN 'IN REFERENCE TO THIS' AT THE BOTTOM OF AN ASK WHOOOOOOOOO THATS A RUSH #ella sweet beautiful ella tysfm for yelling w me about this we're in territory real close to the center of my heart rn #ty for meetin me here and celebrating harr w me today eeefekfjekje warm heart warm heart warm heart <3 #asks #falling #two ghosts

[bigskydreaming]

Ok so everyone and their mama is being resurrected on Krakoa and so many people in marvel have gone through the revolving door that is death. So please tell me just one little thing. Where is Irene Adler? Is she still dead? If not, then why is she only just now being brought back? Why is one of the most iconic imo queer couples still suffering? #GiveMystiqueHerWife #LetMyWLWBeHappy #BringDestinyBack

She is still dead, but she hasn’t been forgotten - this is actually a long-running subplot Marvel laid down, though I’m with you in wanting them to Get To It already. My guess is we’ll start to see more building towards this particular plotline once X of Swords is done, though it won’t actually be the NEXT major storyline. Just a hunch, but my bet is the next focal storyline the X-books concentrate on after X of Swords wraps up is the conflict brewing with the Children of the Vault, after Darwin, Laura and Synch got taken prisoner by them in one of the earlier issues of the core X-Men title. 

Alternatively, the next major focus is going to be on what’s brewing under the surface with Vulcan (though its also possible these are going to be one and the same. Gabe’s stories have always been linked with Darwin’s more than anyone else, and given that he’s front and central to whatever’s front and central with whatever’s coming with the CotV, it wouldn’t surprise me if our next face to face with Gabe’s ‘dark side’ ties into that same story. Ugh, Gabe going all Emperor Vulcan again and teaming up with the Children of the Vault....now there’s a scary thought. But dammit, just let Gabe be good, I’m so tired of this ‘there’s something just innately dark and evil inside of him’ crap, bleh. BUT I DIGRESS).

But anyway, the thing with Destiny is actually an ongoing subplot. Back in Powers of X, it was explicitly ‘decided’ by Moira, Xavier and Magneto that they were actively going to try and keep any precogs from being resurrected on Krakoa, including - and ESPECIALLY Irene - because basically, they’re afraid of the precogs, and the fact that there’s no hiding from them Xavier’s big secret.....for all his big talk, he doesn’t actually know what the HELL he’s doing. The thing they’re hiding from everyone else is that they actually already TRIED the Great Krakoa experiment at least once before, or at least to some degree, though we do know they’ve done at least some things differently this time around. 

But that was the future shown in Powers of X, where Moira ended up living 1000 years into the future before dying and resetting the timeline....and coupled with the fact that the three of them believe that they’re now on the LAST of Moira’s predicted eleven lifetimes, this is their last chance to ‘get it right’ so to speak, and to find a way forward that allows the mutant race to survive and flourish past any of the endpoints Moira’s previous lives and foreknowledge have shown....

Basically, the fear seems to be that if everyone else on Krakoa knew this background for how they came up with all of this and the futures they’re trying to avoid, as well as the fact that quite simply, they do not know if the course they’ve charted this time is going to be any more capable of circumventing the doom they keep butting up against lifetime after lifetime....this would undermine all faith in them and what they’re doing, and fracture the tenuous alliances that so far have everyone from the X-Men to Apocalypse and Sinister and Selene all working side by side. 

They ‘built’ modern Krakoa according to blueprints gleaned from actual knowledge of the future.....but they’re afraid of competing blueprints getting in the way of the road they’ve taken everyone down and derailing their own plan of action. Especially if everyone else were to find out that for all their confidence, they can’t say with certainty the road this time around is going to actually lead where they’re trying to go....and that in fact, they actually have a track record of a good half a dozen previous attempts where they got it disastrously wrong.

So even though Xavier explicitly promised Raven that he would resurrect Irene in exchange for her cooperation and her place on the Quiet Council.....he, Magnus and Moira have been shown meeting in secret to say that they are actually deadset against that happening. But Raven is no fool of course, and she’s suspected from the start that Xavier’s just playing her, and he has no intention of ever resurrecting Irene. (I mean, she was married to the man once, after all, as blergh as that Bendis-bite was. I may think it made for a spectacularly shitty and pointless story, but just saying, few people know how much shit Xavier is full of better than Mystique does). 

So we’ve been treated to scenes of Raven brooding deep in her underground Krakoan lair over a glance of wine and an angsty look at Irene’s old mask, vowing “I’ll get you yet, Xavier, and your little dog too,” because idk, why pass up a good Wicked Witch of the West allusion when its right there. Mystique works hard for her Brand, let her enjoy it.

She definitely knows the game that’s afoot, and she has no intention of letting Xavier get away with it. So she’s very clearly scheming on how to circumvent him and get the Five to resurrect Irene without Xavier’s help....but that’s easier said than done. She either needs leverage to force his hand, while still probably not knowing for sure WHY he’s stalling or trying to avoid bringing back Irene, and thus having no way to judge exactly HOW deadset against it he is, and thus how great of leverage she’d actually need to pull that off...or else, she needs a telepath she can trust (or y’know, trust that she has them securely in her pocket) but who also is strong enough to take Xavier’s place in the resurrection/brain download process....as well as needing access to the Cerebro archives where the back-ups of everyone’s consciousnesses are stored. 

(Incidentally, part of how Xavier’s been stalling here is he’s claimed once or twice that he only has back-ups stored of mutant consciousnesses from the point when he started actually preserving them, and Irene died BEFORE he started doing this so he just doesn’t have her in Cerebro, but this is pretty blatantly a lie. He brought back Petra and Sway, after all, and they very definitively died LONG before David killed Irene on Muir Island back in the day).

But yeah, I’m as impatient as anyone to see Irene back in action in all her chaotic cryptic glory, and for Raven/Irene to finally fucking rise the way they deserve. And oh holy hell is Raven’s wrath going to be an absofuckinglutely beautiful thing once she finally has her proof that Xavier - her ex-husband, lol, oh X-Men soap opera tangles - has been lying and scheming to keep her wife dead all this time. Like she’s literally said the words “I will burn Krakoa to the ground,” and I mean, its Raven. When she talks about razing Rome to ashes, she’s not joking. The woman does not bluff. She lies, she deceives, she steals, but she never ever fucking bluffs. There’s a big storm coming here and this particular one’s name is Hurricane Raven, not Ororo Munroe. I want it, and I want it nooooooooooow, lol, but I can’t actually claim that this has been overlooked by Marvel rather than just allotted a time table that isn’t to my liking because - 

OH I DON’T KNOW ITS NOT LIKE WE HAVEN’T ALREADY BEEN WAITING FOR THE RETURN OF IRENE ADLER FOR 84 BAJILLION FUCKING YEARS ALREADY, LIKE LOGAN HAS LITERALLY GONE TO HELL AND BACK A DOZEN TIMES SINCE IRENE FIRST EXITED PURSUED BY BEAR AND JEAN’S ASCENDED AND DE-PHOENIXED SO MANY TIMES DEATH HAS BASICALLY HANDED HER A PUNCH CARD THAT’S REDEEMABLE FOR ONE FREE RESURRECTION AFTER ITS ALL FULL AND C’MOOOOOOON. 

I mean.

WILDSIDE is back. After dying in Neverland in Tieri’s Weapon X run, RICHARD FREAKING GILL was brought back to life before IRENE FUCKING ADLER, I would simply like to express my undying HOOOOOOWWWWW??? to that. 

BUT.

I.

DIGRESS.

Ahem. Sorry, I just have very strong opinions on the subject of Irene, lololol. And well, everything. I probably have strong opinions on kumquats and I can’t actually recall at the moment if I’ve ever even eaten one or if I’m just particularly fond of that word and the saying of it. Look, you get what I mean.

Anyway, yeah. We’re getting Irene back eventually. There’s absolutely no way we’re not at this point. Even my cynicism can’t pretend otherwise. They haven’t just left Chekhov’s gun locked and loaded sitting on the mantlepiece here, they commissioned an entire arsenal of Chekhov’s guns and renamed them Irene Adler’s guns in her honor and left them all gift-wrapped on the front porch. Its coming. Its just not. Here YET. (Cut to me being a five year old on a long car ride are we there yet are we there yet are we there yet how bout now - )

So yeah. That’s the scoop, the skinny, the shit(ake mushroom) on this particular subject.

Incidentally, on a related note, I am still of the opinion that pretty much all of Powers of X was one giant red herring, and the real direction all of this is building towards, with Moira, with the Five and the resurrection protocols.......ultimately, I think its all really been about IRENE’S machinations from the start, and Moira and Charles have actually been marching to the beat of HER drum ever since the very first time Irene and Moira encountered each other way back in Moira’s fourth lifetime.

Basically, I think it allllllllll really comes back to the fact that....

Irene Adler is a beautiful fucking liar who lies as only Raven Darkholme’s One True Love possibly can, and she played Moira like a fiddle from Day Fucking ONE.

Full theory on that can be found here:

https://bigskydreaming.tumblr.com/post/188290623176/so-house-of-x-2plot-hole-or-lie-when-destiny

[larksinging]

and then ummm a few things you want to see in westworld season 3 maybe?

alright THIS is where this belongs. lemme post this 

first off: let dolores and whoever the fuck new hale is date. i could go into narrative reasons, but really its more… tessa thompson just came out, and evan rachel wood is pretty open about her bisexuality, right? and tbh queer actors deserve to be able to play queer characters. and you have the PERFECT opportunity. and if they really have been cutting out this kind of thing of the last season or two… c’mon, westworld. who knows who the fuck tessa thompson actually is playing, but they could make it work. do it. do it you cowards.

and then, of course, maeve. i dont think anyone believes shes gone for good, but they still better bring her back. maeve is such a staple of the show, how could they not? anyway if they keep up the “one host per season gets true consciousness”, then season 3 should be maeve’s turn. cmon. that might be an interesting arc to give her anyway, since… what can they do with her daughter arc? would she want to meet up with her daughter in the forge somehow, or would she be satisfied just knowing her daughter is happy there? good conflict potential. cmon felix you know what to do!

hmmmm. maybe… more comeuppance for william? like he gets the nice moment of his hand getting blasted off and dolores being all “lol get rekt”, but… honestly id say one of my biggest complaints about s2 is that it painted him more sympathetically than he deserved, EVEN THOUGH he still does some pretty horrific things this season. they walked this back a bit in the finale, which was good, but… i don’t want to sympathize with willaim, oh my god, if you’re gonna keep him on (and i get it, ed harris is great) then use him like the villain he can be. william is great because he is bother monstrous and completely human and his best stuff is when the show’s playing with that. lean more on that, s3.

dolores, new hale, bernard, and any other hosts they brought out doing modern world stuff! please! honestly i think there could be a fun plotline with idk… dolores politicking it up, maybe to get in under delos’ nose or something. i’d love to see what westworld does OUTSIDE of westworld. or god, can you imagine if, for whatever reason, dolores had to come back to westworld posing as a guest? i mean, it’d be terrible, but… interesting.

i dunno, i trust westworld to be decent a lot more than other shows, so i have stuff that might be cool but otherwise im mostly like “lead me by the hand, writers, ill go where you follow”

#does this still need a spoiler tag #rorykillmore

[whentherewerebicycles]

wrote from 9:30-4:30 today and I was on FIRE. got a huge chunk of the girl readers chapter finished, most of it new writing, and I think it is really really good. and even though I wasted a million hours yesterday writing about harry styles (lol) I think that it helped me kinda unlock a big chunk of the final chapter, which is about how deeply rooted queer identity politics + ideology critique are in these masculine-coded, modernist models of exile, estrangement, and exceptionality. one of the big things I am trying to challenge myself to do in the diss is to write about femininity, bisexuality, girlhood, and popular culture without resorting to what often feels like the lazy academese of subversion or radicalism. I am trying to think about how the demand that we always be subverting or overthrowing something is so intertwined with this idea that “great art” is universal and transcends its context to speak to all people in the same way (universal of course inevitably means male, white, European, aka the “neutral” coded perspective).

it is shockingly hard to write an academic work that does not lapse into a hypercritical mode or describe a text’s value without resorting to describing it as subverting (or resisting, overthrowing, interrogating, critiquing, whatever). It is hard not to reproduce that idea that the only important work is work that ~makes it new or departs from something in a radical break from convention. I keep having to gently bring myself back to a different vocabulary: collaborative creation, community, care...

anyway idk thinking/writing about fan cultures always helps me think through why literary criticism as an institution makes me feel so bad and kinda reminds me that there are other cultures of reading out there. fandom can feel real bad too sometimes but tbh I think many of the things that feel worst about it are practices that are rooted in academic forms of critique that have gradually seeped into the popular cultural consciousness!!! that.. sucks... and feels kinda complicated. but even so: creative fandoms have always nurtured my ability to care for things and encouraged me to be careful with the things I love, even when academia has done its best to discipline that gentleness out of existence.

#personal #academia #grad school #mw #dissertation

[alongcamepolyblog]

I'm a queer woman, whose dated mostly cishet dudes my life. After coming out, I've dated a few girls (even having a few non-monogamous relationships) but I'm finding myself falling for a cishet monogamous dude that I *surprise* am reeeeeeally into. Am I a bad queer for having these feelings, and am I an even worse person for being confused on where I lie on the monogamous/non-monogamous spectrum?

Oh, honey. The very short and very firm answers I have for you, for both of your questions, are no, and no, not at all. 

It’s Pride month, and there are lots of things floating about about queerness. Equinox has a horrible joke of an ad campaign about the ABCs of LGBTQ+, and they kick off the video with “ally” (gag me) – erasing asexuals from the queer community completely – and then lumping in kink and S&M as if those things are inherently queer, or all queers are kinky. This is the entirety of my reaction to that:

NYC Pride is supposedly going to be televised this year, because everyone wants to get in on queerness as spectacle. But the problem with marginalized identities being perceived through the lens of a dominant [read: white supremacist, cissexist, heteronormative, patriarchal] narrative (i.e., white cishets with money who like glitter and dislike the history that is the Stonewall Riots being led by Black and Latina trans women) is that the dominant narrative fucks us up. From adolescence (or even earlier if you’re Black or POC), and continuously. 

What I’m getting from you letter is mostly that you don’t feel queer enough. “Not queer enough” is just another version of “not enough” and, in my experience, at the root of every “not enough” – especially for someone who lives within one or more marginalized identities – is how we’re not shaping up to some distant, inauthentic ideal (which is *always* seen through the lens of whiteness).

What does “queer enough” look like, to you? Take a moment and really think about it. What are the narratives that you’re bringing to “queer enough” that have you stuck in the position of feeling like you’re falling short?

I’m also a queer woman who for a long time dated mostly cishet dudes all my life, and when I was stewing in my ‘not enough’ feelings, they usually had to do with my femmeness, and how I was worried about being read. (This is called internalized femmephobia.) My response was to cut off all my hair (and then, ridiculously, have a lot of feelings about being read as too butch/“too gay”; read: “too much.” We truly cannot win.) I got a tattoo of a Sailor Jerry mermaid rocking a pixie cut and reading a book with her boobs out to telegraph to the world that I LIKE GIRLS. I later got an undercut, a septum piercing; all markings of things that I thought would make me more “visibly queer.” (And maybe it did, but now I’m also Brooklyn-adjacent, so I look pretty much like everyone else. Oh well.) 

But here’s the thing with visibility that I think is important to note: My bbqueer striving to be “visibly queer” was a privilege, even as it was causing me anxiety and feelings of not enough-ness; trans folks, and BIPOC folks, queer and straight, struggle with hypervisibility in ways that my light skinned, cisgender ass generally does not, and it is important to me to state that plainly.

Did any of the things I did to establish my queer chick street cred actually make me any queerer? No. You know what does make me queer? 

The fact that I’ve always felt a little odd my whole life, and it wasn’t until I found my queerness that some part of that began to ease. My intense relationships with female friends that crashed and burned in startling ways, which I now realized were warped and stuck in a pressure-cooker by the queerness that I didn’t have words for, since I was raised so steeped in Catholicism and heteronormativity. The fact that I’ve had to fight to recognize my queerness; the fact that my parents made me stop watching Xena for “the violence” when I have a sneaking suspicion I probably was made to stop watching it for the gayness (and I don’t say that to criticize my parents at all – I don’t even think that was something that consciously registered for them; that is part of my queerness too). The fact that my dad tried to make me stop watching Buffy when Willow came out as gay – he TRIED lol – and I literally told him over my dead body. The fact that Willow came out as gay and it still took me an additional ten years to realize that I’m bisexual, bc lol, where are all the bi girls on TV??? Where are the bi girls who look like me? (Here’s one.)

I understand your angst, though. As queer women, we’re so often told that our sexuality is contingent on who we’re with. My doctors have treated me that way – when I have male partners, I’m straight, and when I have female partners, I’m gay. When I come out about being non-monogamous, I’m pretty sure all they see is a neon-sign over my head that, depending on the doctor, reads “HIGH RISK” at best, and “SLUT” at worst. These are messages that we have to deal with every day. It is so, so rare to find a place and a community that validates who you are, exactly as you are.

And the queer community isn’t exempt from that, either! I had a girlfriend who identified as a lesbian who had a problem with me having sex with dudes. I had a girlfriend who identified as poly who hated the idea of me having other partners, so she asked me to be in a closed triad with her and her husband – and then the two of them, jointly, decided to dump me, in part because seeing him with me scared the crap out of her. 

Our world is imperfect, and our communities reflect that. It takes strength and resilience and the deepest, fiercest love for who you know yourself to be to fight that. It can be exhausting, and sometimes we don’t always win these battles with “not enough,” because our society is not structured to encourage or even allow us to love ourselves. And I’m sorry for that, and I am sending you all of my love, not just because it’s June and it’s Pride month, but always, because you deserve so much better than this.

With regard to where you stand on the spectrum of monogamy and non-monogamy – fuck that scale. You are where you are, and how you do relationships is your business, and your partner(s)’ business, and anyone on the outside looking in can go fuck themselves. Maybe you’re feeling more monogamous right now – cool. Maybe you’re just super deep in New Relationship Energy with this exciting new person – that’s also fine! Either of these things or neither of them can be true, or one of them can be true sometimes, or they can both be true at least half the time, and the only thing that means is that’s where you are at right now, and where you are right now in your dating life is not a comment on how ‘good’ of a queer you are. You don’t have to be good. You just have to be yourself.The most important thing I ever learned about queerness was last summer at the LAMBDA Writers Workshop. My teacher was Benjamin Alire Saenz, and the first thing he asked us to do was to write about what scared us most in the world. I wrote about not being enough – not queer enough, not Latina enough, not good enough at non-monogamy, not enough of a writer. Not enough, not enough, not enough. He said to us, “Queer is an identity that is entirely self-defined” – and your ability to do that, to be who you are, all of who you are, and say fuck you to the cishets who want queerness to look the way they want to consume it, and a similar buzz off to the queers who would suggest your queerness is not queer enough because of who you’re with – is not only an act of resistance, but also the best gift you could give yourself, and a gift you have always deserved.

Happy Pride, love.

#ask me anything #queerness #LGBTQIAP+ #pride month #pride #monogamy #non-monogamy #queer chicks #queer femmes #femme #femmephobia #sex ed #sexuality #comprehensive sex education #inclusive sex ed #visibility #hypervisibility #ethical non-monogamy #alternative relationship styles

[2centsofsilver]

Losing My V Card

Telling Brendon All About It! ~ SUNDAY, DEC 23, 2018, 11:50 PM ~

Alright, I’m here!

Katherine

Ok! I’m here

So yesterday Natasha stayed the night and we made out and she gave me some great tips, etc.

We went to Cafe Zola and the Kerrytown shops today and got some gifts for our families

Katherine

She left at like 5:30 back to Ohio. My anxiety today was through the roof. We slept in the same bed last night and I was so anxious about today that I couldn’t sleep. So I took more melatonin than usual not realizing the mg was higher than normal so I took like 3x my normal amount and then got scared I was gonna die so Natasha held my hand all night??? But what ultimately happened was, I was so anxious and then resisting against this intense sleep dose. And ended up not sleeping at all.

Katherine

So today I was a miserable zombie in a horrible mood with Natasha and felt really bad about it and worried about tonight because I wasn’t in a good place to calm the fuck down

And I just secretly wanted Natasha to leave so that I could go home and calm down so I told her I wanted to go back to my place early and she left like an hour earlier than planned and I was able to calm down in bed and stuff

Katherine

Then I go out to my car to do my makeup at like 6. All the makeup that is usually in my car for whatever reason wasn’t there so I had to search my car to find it for 15 min and couldn’t find my main foundation. So I told Ruth I was running late. I was sooooo fucking mad at myself for being unprepared and late and shit per usual. So I floored it to Walgreens, bought makeup at 6:30, put it on, Floored it to Kerrytown and got there exactly at postponed time of 6:45 on the dot somehow.

Katherine

So it was just this absolute shit show right before, as usual, is the point I’m trying to make.

With me? Lol

Yup!

Katherine

I was just really fucking mad and hated myself because this happens all the time

So I text her when I’m walking in, she tells me where she’s sitting and what she’s wearing, I walk in and don’t see her. So I’m thinking I’m at the wrong Sweetwaters. But then I saw her sitting by the window at a high top table. And she. Was. GORGEOUS

Have I shown you a pic??

I believe so!

Katherine

   She looked just like that, wearing this maroon pretty sweater and had her thick dark hair up in a messy bun on the top of her head. HER EYES were stunning. As beautiful or more beautiful than Rachel.

She’s super pretty!

Katherine

Yeah!

So I walk in v flustered because I’m late and shit and walk over, say hi and apologize for being late. She was super cool about it. She said I should go get some coffee. I come back and we just talk for about an hour and a half

Katherine

We talked about how I prefer cold drinks over hot, our families, our brothers, how we celebrate Christmas, her time living in northern Michigan and how much she hated it due to scarce civilization and zero queer community. We talked about Euchre and she did this thing where she asked if she could show me what her brother does during euchre by taking my hands and making them “milk a cow” over her hot tea lol

Katherine

And then she drank the tea.

Oh interesting lol

Katherine

Yeah lmao

And then at some point in the middle of a non-related conversation, she mentioned “lack of experience” and having “only done casual a few times” so I used that as an opportunity into the next segment of our convo

I asked her what she meant by that

And she basically told me that she’s relatively new to casual dating & encounters and has been “dancing with people” for about 3 months

Wasn’t sure what she meant but she said it’s a euphemism she likes to use

So imagine how a therapist has a full case load of clients

She explained she also has an active running list of regulars outside of work that she regularly hooks up with. And she calls it “dancing with people” as in, the dance of casually having sex with many people

Haha ok

Katherine

I joked saying I was glad she didn’t mean she wanted to go out dancing

Katherine

So she explained that something she does is talk to others about the others. Like all the people she’s sleeping with, she talks about the others to the others. I was just like ok whatever. I think she just meant she was gonna reference scenarios with her other people to talk to me about like examples of the kinds of stuff she does. Idk if that makes sense

Katherine

Maybe saying that it’s okay she’s talking about the others to me, like letting me know they’re aware of it. Idk.

So she started talking about some of the other people she’s been sleeping with and for how long, what those situations are like, very generally

Hang on give me a second

Alright

Katherine

Went blank for a sec

I think she went into all that because I asked her what casual dating/encounters looks like for her, and what she’s imagining/picturing for us

And she said something like “everyone is different but there has been a general/typical theme in how it tends to go”

Which is just, meet up, hang out, do something. Then go back to someone’s place

She said every encounter varies person to person

I asked her to elaborate on her lack of experience

That’s when she mentioned number of partners, and starting out nervous. She said every single person she’s “had a sex interview with” has been very nervous and expressed a good amount of anxiety

And described it as a common theme

So at that point I felt comfortable mentioning my anxiety

Katherine

I basically said, “Yeah I also share lack of experience. I have very very minimal experience. It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen anybody. This past year I have become more sure of myself and what I want, become more accepting of myself and self confident, whereas in the past my anxiety took the wheel. I feel ready for this and am very excited, but do have a small amount of anxiety”

Katherine

Something like that

Katherine

And I was very grateful because that led her into a conversation about how anxiety is normal, all humans have it. How she and every person she sleeps with has it. And how every single “interview” (she used that word jokingly) she’s had recently has involved the same exact expression of fears/anxiety/hesitancy.

Katherine

She emphasized that multiple times thereafter; that our conversation was a very common theme in all of her most recent meet ups

That many many people show up, express lack of experience, uncertainty with their ability to meet expectations, and a relatively high level of anxiety. And that really was valuable for me. It greatly reduced my nerves and discomfort.

And all the talk from friends about not bringing up my anxiety.

I asked her whether what she’s looking for is entirely non-emotion focused. And she said no. She said that’s not possible. She said you have to be attached a little bit in order to trust someone and feel safe.

Katherine

So yeah it was honestly the most ideal conversation and setup. I increasingly felt more and more comfortable. She was very very easy to talk to. And I felt comfortable opening up and expressing anxiety, not feeling like I had to hide it. I even mentioned varying advice from friends about what to share/disclose about my anxiety and she very much reassured me, repeatedly, that having anxiety was not a turn off for her.

Katherine

That it was completely fine, okay, acceptable, normal, common, expected, etc.

I asked her what I can expect and she asked me what my “yes please” and “no not at all” lists were.

Katherine

I hesitated and she said “It’s okay if you don’t know.” So I asked her for examples. She told me that on her yes please list were things like: biting, slapping, and all the basics including oral. Her no list included things like bondage, cutting, drawing blood, anal. But that she’ll give anal. So I talked about some of the things I love and the things I didn’t want.

Katherine

And then I asked her what her preference around hair was and she was woke af as you said, in not expecting or asking me to physically remove the hair on my body. So I felt very relieved.

Katherine

I talked to her about my experiences with Katie who was manipulative/abusive, Jamie who wasn’t the right match, Mike who nearly raped me drunk, and Rachel whose partner vetoed me. She had a knowledge bad in polyamory and she apologized for what happened to me, saying it wasn’t gone about appropriately. I mentioned things like tightness and fear of pain, asked for open communication, check ins, gentle fingering, mentally freezing, and mentioned body image self consciousness. She said everyone has it and that it’s okay, not a thing to worry about. I said “obviously you can tell my body type through my clothes and if that were a dealbreaker for you, we prob wouldn’t be this far into this conversation,” and she said exactly.

Katherine

knowledge base*

She told me “It’s not supposed to hurt, we don’t have to make it hurt, it will be okay,” etc.

Katherine

I just felt all my anxiety fade away. I couldn’t stop smiling and felt so good and so happy/excited. I felt like I could trust her. She also talked a lot about trauma and filling the void, the idea isolation and physical touch. She’s very much a social worker and I’m grateful for that.

Katherine

Towards the end she said “We don’t have to do all of this in one night. There are no rules here, no shoulds, no have-tos. We can go back to your place right after this if you’re comfortable doing that, we could also call it a night and plan for another night, options are endless.” I thought for a moment and told her I’m feeling comfortable and would like to move forward with this at my place She asked if I was sure, that we didn’t have to, etc. I told her yes I’m ready. I went to the bathroom. Texted you, Natasha, and Rachel. I collected my mental and emotional bearings. Came back to the table and mentioned “being ready but scared.” She said “it’s gonna he okay,” and that set me over the edge. Got me off right there in my pants. Put our coats on and walked out

Katherine

She followed me back to my place in our cars. I felt good the whole time like “it’s finally happening”

Katherine

Came into my place, casually talked on the way to my room about why thI couch was covered in plastic and why my bed was covered in boards but has clean sheets (Lilah has been pissing everywhere). She said she literally does not care what my room looks like. But I thought it was interesting that Natasha and I just so happened to spend hours and hours at the laundromat last night washing my sheets and making my bed and cleaning my room, not even knowing this was set to happen.

Katherine

And my roommate JUST SO HAPPENED to be out of town. It was meant to happen

Phone dying give me a sec

Katherine

Tell you more tomorrow, dozing

DEC 24, 2018, 9:35 AM

Wow!!! I’m so ready to hear the rest!!

This sounds great!

Katherine

Yeah!

 DEC 24, 2018, 3:10 PM

Katherine

Oh I meant to also tell you, that I mentioned having never had sex. Like I was straight up but hesitant about it. And she just sorta shrugged like no big deal, not at all a turnoff. She said she had recently met with another person who had also never had sex. She saw nothing deficient in it whatsoever. So amazing

Katherine

I’m out shopping but will tell you more when I get home!

Katherine

I told her I enjoy dominance but to be more equal our first time. But I told her she could be a little dominant and talk down to me and stuff. I told her I was ok with her basically taking the lead with me. And she said that was fine, that she felt it had already been applied. So that was great too. It was all so ideal!

Katherine

implied**

MON 7:25 PM

How was the actual sex??

Katherine

On my way Home from target, I’ll tell u all about it I promise lol

MON 10:37 PM

Katherine

Ok I can message now lol. Hope you’re having an amazing time with your family I’m gonna just tell ya part II and you can respond whenever you want

Okkkkk so!

Katherine

She followed me back to my place. We talked on the way in. I went to the bathroom and got situated. My nerves were kicking in again but this time it was much more excitement and thrill and fun-type butterflies. I came out of the bathroom, mentioned I was gonna take Tylenol for a headache and then I glanced at her. She was laying in my bed on her side fully clothed, cute as hell, smiling at me.

Katherine

Took my breath away. I was so damn wet already My god. So I sorta blushed and went in my room, asked if we should have the lights on or off. She said hallway light was enough so we turned the lights off. I wasn’t sure what I should do so I asked her (that is basically how we went about the whole night step by step which I loved and deeply appreciated). I said, “Should I take off my clothes?” (I assumed the answer was no and that we’d get there but I was trying to figure out what to do immediately lol)

Katherine

So she said, “It’s ok, why don’t we just hang out like this here for a little?” She was so nice and could sense I was nervous so we took things real slow. She got close to me and sorta was sitting on the bed facing me, I was also sitting facing her. And then she sorta stretched out back onto her side smiling at me, so I did the same. So we were laying there on our sides fully clothed up close to each other. Whole time she’s saying, “Yeah, just like that, that ok? You doin okay?” etc.

Katherine

Felt very safe and comfortable

Katherine

So then she put her hand on my shoulder and kinda rested it there, kinda rubbing my shoulder and arms a little, asking if I’m doing ok, we got calm. I don’t remember what we were talking about but we were talking. And in a minute or so, I just sorta looked up and said “ok” and started nodding. And she’s like “yeah?” Maybe I said I was ready. Idk. It was all very natural. She was really really firm on getting solid yes’s from me before continuing because she knew I had been assaulted by a guy several years prior. So I’m like “yeah” and she asked if I wanted to go a step further and I nodded. She’s like “yes?” I’m like “yes” and then BOOM it was like a sex scene in grey’s anatomy LOL

Katherine

She pulled me in, dove right in, we started making out relatively hard. It was like, perfect timing perfect setup, and I was immediately good at it. Damn. She is a good kisser. I felt comfortable the whole time and used lots of tongue and all that. She was much better than Natasha lmao. I was just really loving every moment, felt like a learner soaking it all up. Like the tongue movements...we twirled tongues in circles over and over. Who knew that could be so exhilarating!

Katherine

She started kissing the side of my face, my forehead, all the way down my neck, my shoulder, she had her hand on the back of my neck. I was shocked by how IMMEDIATE the sensations were. Like what the fuck. I didn’t expect that stuff to feel SO GOOD

Katherine

I started kissing her face, down her neck, her shoulder, and put my hand on the back of her neck, and kinda gripping her hair. It smelled so good. Her hair is so THICK and luscious. Whole time she’s telling me it feels really good, saying “yeah” a lot and letting me know what she liked. I’m thinking “damn, this is either just how people communicate during lesbian sex or she actually thinks I’m really good” lol

Katherine

But she seemed to REALLY like what I was doing. Like at one point I put my hand on her back and she said “Yeah I like that. I like your hand on my back like that” so I liked being told what she liked

It was very affirming for me. Confidence boosting.

Katherine

Soon she says “I’d like to take this off you, if that’s okay.” I was wearing a red knit sweater. I was so excited for that moment for some reason. I wore it on purpose because of how smoothly it just falls right off my skin. So she slid it off me, and started kissing down my arms, etc.

Katherine

I said, “what about my shirt?” And she said “Would you like to take your shirt off?” And I said yes so she helped me with that too. And then I was just in my bra and pants. And she started kissing my chest

Katherine

I was kinda nervous to be exposed but she was like rubbing my stomach and stuff and didn’t seem repelled or anything and I was enjoying it so much so most those self conscious nerves were gone. By this point I’m completely outstretched. I asked her if she wanted me to take her shirt off and she said ok so we did. I kissed her all over, etc.

Katherine

Debating how detailed to go on this next part LMFAO

Breast play????? Is...... AMAZING. What the actual fuck. Who knew.

She started doing that to me with my bra still on and I was like already over the edge lmao.

We were still making out, kissing on the lips, etc, just a variety of all of it by now. And then she asks, “Do you want me to take this off?” pulling at my bra. And I said YES

AND THEN

Katherine

We took that off. And get this. By natural instinct I covered up. I literally covered my chest by kinda folding my arms in front of me, twisted over from back to side, and put my head downward. Like I didn’t even realize I did that. And she noticed. She was very good at noticing when I was less okay

Katherine

Because I’m REALLY REALLY embarrassed and ashamed of my breasts. Like really bad. Because when I got assaulted by Mike Johnson, the way he looked at them all confused when he realized they weren’t perky. The way he held them and sorta paused to think. The way he tried to get my nipples to come out even though I don’t have naturally erect nipples. I remember how badly I wanted to cry when he did all that. So I was really ashamed when my bra came off. I didn’t want her to see my chest. Isn’t that sad???

Katherine

And she kinda caught my eye contact when I looked down. And then I just laid on my side for a bit kissing her, etc. And we were facing each other side by side again. And she looks at me and she’s like, “You know. It’s helpful when I can see you.” I hadn’t even realized I’d done that, because I didn’t know what she meant. I’m like “Oh...haha, ok, wait, you mean like my face or the rest of my body?” And she said “Both.” She had paused. I don’t know how to explain it but it was like she saw a moment and caught it for me, and wasn’t gonna let me feel ashamed. It was like “let’s tackle this before we continue,” so we took a pause

Katherine

She’s like “It seemed like you were hiding a bit there,” and I just said yeah, and she was like “we are okay.” And I’m like ok. And she said ok? And I’m like ok. And then we moved on. I rolled back onto my back and let myself be exposed and closed my eyes. And she moved into my breasts and what happened after that was history lmao

Katherine

She starts feeling all around. I was blown away by how good it felt immediately. I remember that with Mike a little. Just felt really really good. I personally like hard rough play in this area and was planning to ask for that. And I pretty much did right away. She had told me she likes biting, both providing and receiving. I love receiving. So I basically just told her to do things and she did. It was all very exceptional. And then I really emphasized how badly I wanted her to hurt me. And she said “You also said you were scared about pain,” and I said “Yes but up here it’s ok.” So yeah I asked her to do the maximum. Pinch. Pull. Bite as hard as she can. Etc. Lots of pain lots of gain. I looooooved it. She asked me if I wanted her to SLAP me. I wasn’t sure about this. Thought about it. Said ok but not too hard. She did it once and i liked it so she did it maybe 2-3 more times. I know this is beyond detailed but I’m also gonna he copying and pasting all these messages into one consolidated blog entry on my private tumblr so yeah lol

Katherine

Gotta write it somewhere lol

Then she started rubbing a certain area and saying “you’re pretty dark here. You may bruise here,” and I said ok that was fine. But omfg. My boobs are SO SORE and bruised today. I’ve got hickies allllllllo over omgggg

I just bruise so easily in general, it’s insane

Katherine

So then I ask if she wants me to take her bra off. We do. She says, “Is this your first set of tits?” I’m like yeah. She goes “This is the first time you’ve ever played with a woman’s tits?” And I’m like yeah. And I’m pretty sure I said “I’m nervous” or “I’m scared” or something. And she said it was ok, “everything will be okay.” I said “what should I do?” And my voice was all fucking nervous and shit. And she said to just play with them. So I went for it the same way she did for me. And she again, affirmed everything I did just by her reaction/sounds but also by telling me.

Katherine

I was like terrified to even look at, touch, lick, or bite her nipples but I did and she loved it so it felt good knowing I was providing something to someone and she was enjoying it

Katherine

She said I was really good at it. Loved the biting. It went really well. At this point things took a turn (in a good way) because I asked her if I could straddle her other leg to get to the other side. And in doing so, my knee brushed against her down there, and the way my body was moving just from licking her up top was causing that to also happen down there so it was like a good segway into part II which i was so ready for. I think I asked her if we could take my pants off. So we did. She helped me. She brushed her hand up against me down there with my underwear still on and it almost sent me right over the edge. She’s like “Is this where you want me” and I couldn’t even talk. I nodded. But she wanted that yes. So I gave it to her. So she started feeling and everything and I told her I wanted her to take my underwear off. She asked if I was sure. Etc etc. and then she did. And moved right in. And I’m not gonna give you details but it was EXQUISITE. She started with her hands. Then moved into oral. Then used her hands again. It was just like. I had hit another planet.

Katherine

Like my mouth dropped open and I said “Holy moly” lmao

Katherine

The oral was just beyond imaginable. Idk if it’s like that for everyone but she knew exactly what she was doing it. Like, v skilled. And then I asked her to finger me. And that was the part during coffee where I expressed great fear and history of pain so she wasn’t sure and definitely asked me if I was sure. She said “you’ve talked about a lot of pain and tightness down here” and I said “yeah but I want you to try and just be gentle.” And she said “We are not required to do this. We don’t have to. We can do other things,” and I said “I know. But I want you to.” (I DID!!!) I told her it can be painful but a huge turn on for me when and if it’s not. So she said ok but said, “if anything hurts, I want you to tell me and I’ll stop.” And I said I will don’t worry

Katherine

So she worked on me a bit. Slow and gentle. I am not kidding when I tell you there wasn’t much pain. A little uncomfortable but she was able to get in there. I incrementally asked for 3 fingers. And she was able to go pretty deep without pain. There was SOME pain here and there. Some intolerable and I spoke up. But I wanted her to try it and we did. I liked it. Halfway through I was shaking from anxiety and cold and expressed that and she covered me up. It was super sweet. It almost felt even better all covered up in blankets and stuff

Katherine

We worked down there a damn ass long time

It was great

Lmfao @ holy moly!!!

Katherine

Then took her underwear off. I didn’t go down on her because she got very very tired lol. So I fingered her till she came. She fingered me more till I came. And then we kissed some more. And then we just laid there. It took over an hour till I came. And then it was really quick and fast and she was confused by how fast I’d orgasmed. I said “I can usually go again right after” and then literally masturbated in front of her and got off in like a minute. But it was still super fast and she was struck by that. Didn’t understand why my orgasm wasn’t longer. And honestly I’m not sure either. I told her after providing myself with millions of orgasms all my life, I sometimes wonder and feel as though I’ve lost my ability to have strong ones anymore. And she thought that was interesting. I mentioned “we’ll have to research it” lol and work on it.

Katherine

Lmaoooo glad you liked that

After I got off to myself she’s like “is that the first time you’ve ever got off in front of someone before?” And I said no, I orgasmed with Mike Johnson. Etc. But yeah

This is all so great so far, it sounds like you had a fabulous night!

Katherine

Then we just laid there and talked about my job lol. I showed her videos of my kids on the JCC tablet while we were still naked and panting which is probably wrong and messed up in numerous ways but WHATEVER lmao. I wanted her to see what I do for a living and she loved it. She said it seems I really love those kids and my job. Then she said she was tired and needed to sleep. I thanked her a ton and said I hope it was okay for her and she said I did a wonderful job. We both got dressed. I walked her to my door. We hugged. She kissed my forehead. And I pulled her in and kissed her hard on her lips. And then she left.

Katherine

She said when I get back in town to let her know and we’ll do it all again.

Basically I’m now on her “outside of work client list”

Because she has a list of people she regularly sleeps with and I’m basically in now. In the books. Lol

I’m so happy brendon

Haven’t stopped thinking about it all day. This morning I got off like 5 times in a row thinking about it and didn’t wanna leave my bed lol

Katherine

OH- there were 2 awkward moments. 1 was when I asked if she was comfortable fingering me anally and she said yes. She did okay but she said she had never done that before. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted and then I was mortified because I forgot that sometimes there’s a smell and so I didn’t say anything but I initiated we move onto something else. Like I was entirely clean back there but I completely forgot that sometimes that can happen. I didn’t utter a word about it but took the lead in moving back into something else lol

Katherine

And then the other awkward thing was an overwhelming need to pee as we moved closer to orgasm. She said that just meant I was close to orgasm. But I fucking know how an orgasm feels for me and this as very much a desperate need to pee so we stopped and I went to the bathroom and COULDNT PEE. She said it’s probably just anxiety and I think she was right. But then she said her hand got tired later and prob wouldn’t have been so tired had we just kept going rather than stopping and then starting over again lol

Katherine

But yeah that’s the end

As the JCC teachers sing at story time: “That’s the end of the story, that’s the end of the story, that’s the end of the store-eeeeeeeeee! It’s time to sing some songs!”

What song should we sing today brendon? If you’re happy and you know it? Ok! Here we go! If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands!!

I diiiiiiid it brendon!!!!!!!! I DID IT! I DID THE THING!

You really did do it!!! I’m so happy for you and also proud of you!

It sounds amazing!

And like you’re gonna do it again soon

I’m glad she was so patient and comfortable and kind

Katherine

Exactly!! Yesss me too!! Thank you Brendon!

All day today, extra energy in my step. Fucking grinning everywhere I go

I TOLD SUSAN

You’re confident!

Katherine

I know!!!

Sounds like it was everything you wanted and needed

Especially in your first time

Katherine

Yes like a dream

Yes

Katherine

And no relationship needed. Like it was the perfect amount of everything just as is.

Which is great

Katherine

I don’t really want a relationship right now

Exactly

Oh also, 2 things I forgot to include. Both awkward

At the very beginning of her going down on me. She spread my legs and I cramped

Like leg cramps on both sides

Katherine

Embarrassing because ya know. I’m fat and I cramp up and she had spread my legs as wide as possible. So I voiced it and she acted like it was no big deal, completely normal, asked if I wanted to prop them up with pillows so we did and she adjusted them and no more cramping. It was like she knew exactly what to do or something

Katherine

And then the other thing was, halfway through the whole thing she said, “Are you familiar with sub/dom BSDM at all?” And I said yes (just from so much porn watching over the years). And she’s like “Well, one thing that tends to be common in BDSM, is the phrase, ‘You are being a very good girl.’ Is that something you’d like me to say to you?” And I wasn’t sure.

Katherine

Like the majority of me didn’t really like the ring it had because it feels fake, scripted, not real. I’d rather her talk down to me and TELL me to be good. But I didn’t like the “good girl” thing and should have told her. I said we could try it so we did and yeah. I didn’t hate it but it wasn’t something I’d wanna do again. I like being told I’m doing good, or to be good. But I don’t like that good girl part.

Katherine

Like that I’m a child and she’s a parent or something. Idk. Didn’t feel right

But then, the thing is, I have my own specifics that a lot of people would probably be uncomfortable with in their own sex life

So we are all different and I get that.

But I have kinks that I’d LOVE to explore with her that are def different and more uncommon. I’m assuming she won’t want to for at least one of them.

Which is fine and completely understandable

And then a third thing that happened was she asked me to slap her breast. Which I wasn’t uncomfortable with or anything. Just nervous and embarrassed to do??? I did it once. She said I did really well. Idk. What are your thoughts on these last few things?