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2btheanswertothequestion · 1 year

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She finds out about it a few weeks after her classes start. It happens by chance, and almost seems too good to be true.

But it's not.

The University of Illinois does actually have its own newspaper for gays and lesbians. It exists, made explicitly for them, by them.

And Robin needs it.

It requires some snooping, though it's basically nothing after everything she did at Starcourt. Soon enough, she is $8.50 ($7.50 for a yearly subscription and $0.5 each for the two previous issues) poorer in dollars and infinitely richer in happiness.

People Like Us: News, opinions, and features for the C-U gay and lesbian community it says on the front page. Issues 2 and 3 are both 8 pages long while the first issue is slightly shorter. They have everything. News about marches in Chicago and local gay-friendly businesses. Opinion pieces on places to meet up and homophobia. Roommate ads, reviews, and personal stories. News about AIDS. And, in the very back, a blurb proclaiming LESBIAN CONTRIBUTORS WANTED.

Maybe that'll be her one day. She's no Nancy, but she can write. For now, though, she's content with reading. It's almost overwhelming to hold the papers, knowing that it's made by people like her. That someone like her might be reading the same words at the same time. Less lonely, in a way.

No one else on campus knows about her. Ellen, her dorm mate, seems fine so far, but Robin won't take her chances just yet. She struck gold with Steve, Eddie, and the kids, but someday her luck will run out. So she hides the issues in a hard folder under her mattress whenever she isn't reading.

Then she gets the October issue in her hand and nearly dies of excitement. On the front page, the news section is announcing that "two highly acclaimed gay/lesbian films are set to appear on campus this month". The groundbreaking Desert Hearts and Parting Glances will be screened four times each, one week apart from each other, at the end of the month.

At her first opportunity, she calls and tells Steve about it.

"You have to come and see them with me!" she says. "I can't go alone!"

So he does, and he barely complains about the 3-hour drive.

On Sunday, October 19, he shows up at 7 in front of her building. They catch up while having a bite to eat before the film. It's mostly her talking, blabbing about classes and professors and new people and Illinois and the college experience while he chews his half of the pizza, staring at her with big eyes that scream I missed you, I missed you, I missed you!

She takes every chance she gets to knock their feet together under the table and clutches his arm on their way to the film. Just in case her own eyes don't scream it back loud enough.

By the time Desert Hearts starts, she's giddy. She knows only what the newspaper told her: that it's about a soon-to-be-divorced college professor meeting a lesbian country girl in Reno in the 50s, and that it includes a 'climactic lovemaking scene'. Both facts have her squirming with excitement, her seat squeaking beneath her.

The lights go out and the movie starts. It's slow-paced and atmospheric, using the Nevada scenery to its advantage. Parts of it are actually really slow, but she doesn't mind, especially not as it builds and builds toward Vivian ultimately accepting her attraction to Cay.

Steve is with her from beginning to end, scoffing at the antagonistic stepmother, squeezing her hand when the lovers are separated, and squeezing some more when they're reunited. When they reach the intimate scene, he gasps loudly. Then both of them succumb to a giggle fit and must stifle themselves lest they be thrown out. The newspaper was right – it is pretty hot stuff.

There's no dramatic declaration of love at the end, no the ending is as slow and quiet as the rest of it. Still, it hits hard. A sledgehammer to the chest, shattering her ribs and smearing her heart all over. Because these women look each other in the eyes and say 'I love you'. They say 'I want you'. They say 'she just reached in and put a string of lights around my heart', and they say it like it's normal. Which, Robin knows it is. But her world is small and their world is the silver screen and they say it like it's normal.

Steve turns to her when the credits roll and the lights come back on, saying it was good. But when she looks at him, his face falls. Arms wrapping around her, he pulls her into his lap and guides her face into the crook of his neck. Fingers cramping where they clutch his shirt, she buries herself deep and cries, cries, cries. She thinks she hears someone ask if she's okay, but Steve shoos them off, so it doesn't matter.

He walks her home in comfortable silence. As they stop outside her building he tucks her hair behind her ear and offers to stay with her. But she tells him no – he has work in the morning, so she'll have to make do without him.

The responsible thing to do after waving him off is go to bed, wake up early for class. Instead, she steers her step to the nearest payphone and punches in a California number. Minutes later she's got Vickie on the line, wondering if she's okay and if she's been crying. Robin reassures her, then recounts the evening. Soon Vickie's bell of a laughter envelops her; they discuss who's the Cay to whose Vivian until Robin runs out of coins.

Next week, Steve is back and they do it all over again, except this time they eat burgers. They even snatch the same seats they had the previous screening.

Parting Glances follows a gay couple for 24 hours of their daily life. Because they're established, their intimate scene happens much earlier. Steve's muttering about how unfair it is that it's less explicit than the lesbian scene has pride burn in her chest, even as she shushes him.

All in all, it's a really good film. It doesn't hit her as hard since it's about gay men and no lesbians, but it still hits. Again, because it's presented as something normal. They're people in love, and they have jobs and problems and dreams and friends. The hardest hit of them all is Nick, who has AIDS but not in a pitiful way. He's a rockstar with a sense of humor, still cool and charismatic. Sexy, even, thanks to the oozing confidence and the intensity of his gaze.

Steve is quietly contemplative on the way out. She slips her hand into his and lets him think. It's first when they're halfway home that she breaks the silence. Spinning so she's walking backward in front of him, him holding her waist to steer her away from lampposts and curbs, she asks:

"Did you like it?"

"I did. But it left me a little sad." He shrugs. "I just hope Nick survives and gets back together with Michael."

She chews the inside of her cheek. "I don't know if… I mean, AIDS is-"

"I know, Robbie, I'm keeping myself up to date. Or I try. It's just… It's very…" Steve sighs, shaking his head. "You know."

And she does know. The fear of being targeted and the frustration of being helpless. The fury of knowing diseases are supposed to be cured, until the ones affected are people who aren't supposed to exist in the first place.

Steve says, "I think he'll be okay. Nick."

"Yeah," she says, a little choked up.

"And he and Michael will be happy."

"Yes."

"And Cay will stay on the train, or Vivian will return to Nevada, and they'll be together. For real."

"They will. And even if they don't," she reaches up to cup his cheeks, caressing his stubbled jawline, "they'll have someone else. Someone just as good. Or better."

His gaze on her is heavy and bright, boring through, seeing inside. He nods.

"Or better," he says.

With that, he grabs and swings her around (in a pretty impressive move, not that she'll admit it to him) until she's latched onto his back. Then he carries her home.

It's maybe 50 degrees out, so not freezing but enough to leave you shivering if your jacket is old and getting threadbare, like Robin's. She's not cold, though, because Steve always runs hot. His back is firm and his grip on her thighs is secure; she burrows into him, absorbing his warmth and familiar scent. Lulled, not to sleep per se, but to rest by his even strides, she dreams of all the beautiful things she wants to have, and even more vividly of the things she wants to keep.

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People Like Us was a real newspaper. You can find the issues that helped inspire this fic here.

(Oh, and you should really watch both those films if you haven't already.)

#stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #stobin #platonic stobin #robin buckley #steve harrington #just taking a short break from november paramedic to finish this #my writing

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emotionallychargedtowel · 3 months

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Desert Hearts rewatch notes

Desert Hearts (1985) is one of my favorite movies, but as with most of my favorites, I've gone quite a while without seeing it at times. I put it on the other day for the first time in years and took some screenshots in the hope that I might get some folks on here to give it a try that haven't, or at least bring back some memories for those who’ve seen it before. Then, when I sat down to post the images, I found I had more to say than I realized.

This was my first time watching this movie since I got into the whole BL/QL genre and I was curious to see if it would seem any different to me after a period of being more immersed in queer stories than usual. Mostly it swept me up into its own world, something this film is really good at. But I did find myself thinking at times about how aspects of it mapped onto QL tropes and more general romance tropes. I also couldn't help but see some parallels to the actual lived experiences of myself and people I know.

Queer romance tropes in Desert Hearts

Three tropes stood out at me that I've run into in the QL world, some of which I've seen in hetero romance settings as well.

Fish out of water - Vivian goes from her life as an academic in New York City to staying at a ranch outside Reno in pursuit of a "quick" divorce. (Having to spend six weeks in a strange place in order to get a divorce was "quick" by 1959 standards.) Helen Shaver, who played Vivian, points out in a featurette included with the Criterion version of the movie that Vivian has been living a very cerebral life, living inside her own head while cutting herself off from her body from the neck down. This radical change of scenery is exactly what she needs to be able to open up to something different.

There’s a similar dynamic at play in hetero fish-out-of-water romances. But I find this trope a lot more interesting in a queer context. Queer identities have a more complex relationship to difference. Among other things, characters who seem to be at home in the environment of the story often turn out to be alienated from it due to others’ perceptions of their sexuality.

Age gap (with the younger person pursuing) - Cay, who is ten years Vivian's junior, is definitely the pursuer here. This isn't a specifically queer trope per se, but it can manifest in some specific ways in queer love stories.

LGBTQ+ identity can put people on unusual timelines in their lives. (This is an idea I first ran into in a book by Jack Halberstam in undergrad.) Sometimes this means being in a more "youthful" mode later in life than cishet people. Other times it means being a particular kind of late bloomer. And so on. So with life stages not conforming to typical expectations, what does it mean to love someone you have a significant age difference with?

In the case of Vivian and Cay, Vivian may be older, but Cay is poised to initiate her into practices and feelings that are pretty familiar for Cay and totally, mind-blowingly new to Vivian. This creates a kind of role reversal. At the same time, Cay has never felt this way about a partner before, so in many ways, their relationship is causing her to have some new and intense experiences as well.

The thing where a character figures out their sexuality for the first time because their feelings toward a love interest act as a catalyst - This is certainly a trope that comes up in stories about queer romance, but it's more debatable whether it's a queer trope in the sense of a trope that is used by and resonates with queer people. I guess I'd say the theme comes up in different ways when a story is very geared toward the "straight gaze" and when it's more authentically queer. With the "straight gaze" version you get things like "gay for you." With more authentic versions, well, I don't think I've noticed many commonalities there. But I will always defend the use of this trope when it's done well in a way that centers queer experience, if only because falling for a specific person is exactly what forced me to come to terms with my own sexuality.

Side note: Speaking of coming to terms with my sexuality, it really is an indication of how deeply in denial I was about my bisexuality in college that seeing this movie for a class didn't help me figure it out. I was deeply affected by it and fixated on it for weeks after seeing it, but it didn't get through the thick shell of obliviousness I had built up around myself.

A connection to personal experience

There are quite a few ways that Desert Hearts resonates with my own experience but one really stood out to me this time around. [Spoilers ahead.] When Cay goes to see Vivian at the hotel where she’s staying after she leaves the ranch, she goes for a last-ditch, Hail Mary move—she takes off her clothes and climbs into Vivian’s bed. At first Vivian tells her to leave, but then she softens a bit, clearly interested but conflicted. Then this moment happens.

I related to this so much. When I fell in love with a someone who was (at that time) presenting as a woman and it started to look like I might actually have a chance, I had so much anxiety about whether and how I could be intimate with my crush and whether I’d be able to “perform” decently. It turns out, as we learned when we compared notes sometime later, we had each had the same worry and we’d both bought an instructional book about lesbian sex (I think it may even have been the exact same book!).

I think part of my anxiety back then stemmed from the prospect of starting from scratch with a new set of practices and skills after being acclimated to sex with men. It made me feel like I was off balance. But when I actually did get close to my crush, another, much more pleasant side to my inexperience came up. It turned out that not having a familiar script for what to do made me much more present and gave me a sense of freedom. I remember thinking that it was like going from traveling down the same old route to exploring a new place that we had to write our own maps for. And that was pretty exhilarating.

Soon after that relationship happened, I read Zami: A New Spelling of My Name by Audre Lorde. There was a passage where Lorde described something very similar from her own life. In this passage, she’s reflecting after her first sexual encounter with a woman after having a similar set of anxieties.

So this was what I had been so afraid of not doing properly. How ridiculous and far away those fears seemed now, as if loving were some task outside of myself, rather than simply reaching out and letting my own desire guide me. It was all so simple.

She’s so amazing at evoking these feelings, isn’t she?

I can’t think of any other places I’ve seen this type of experience discussed besides these two. (I’m pretty sure others exist, but the fact that I haven’t come across them suggests there aren’t very many.) There are plenty of stories out there about hetero sex performance anxiety and its eventual resolution, but I think the queer version of this kind of learning has some big inherent differences that go way beyond the genders of partners being different. So it’s really nice to see it come up here, and be handled in such a sweet way.

In case you’re wondering, once Vivian is able to “let her own desire guide her,” in Lorde’s words, she also finds that her fears were misplaced. The resulting love scene is beautifully executed even by current standards. It’s even more remarkable to see it in a film that was released in 1985. It’s equally remarkable that this sex scene was shown in rather explicit detail.

about, by, and/or for?

I'm also thinking about this movie in terms of the for/by/about queers typology that @wen-kexing-apologist came up with a while back. In my estimation, Desert Hearts belongs right in the center of WKA's Venn diagram. It's about queers, of course. I'd also place it in the "by queers" category. The director, Donna Deitch, who also co-wrote the screenplay, is an out lesbian. It's not clear whether the other co-screenwriter was queer. Her personal life was mysterious enough that it seems like a definite possibility. And the movie is based (somewhat loosely) on a novel by Jane Rule, who was also an out lesbian and whose work as a writer was very focused on lesbian characters.

I'd also consider this movie to be "for queers." It was marketed to a wider audience, of course. But as I watched some of the bonus material and looked at writing about the movie, I saw a lot of evidence that Deitch made the film for her community and they embraced it.

Shaver had a really lovely story in the featurette I watched about this. I forget the exact nature of it, but she described how she attended some kind of event with Deitch and Charbonneau where the audience was full of queer women who gave them an incredibly long standing ovation that she found very moving and helped her see how impactful the film had been.

I’m also sure Deitch had queer viewers in mind (at least in part) when she set out to fill a glaring gap in Sapphic representation. In an interview with AfterEllen, Deitch said, “My goal was to make a lesbian love story that did not end in a bisexual love triangle or a suicide. Because that’s all that had been made at the time I set out to make Desert Hearts.” (Note: I’m not linking due to transphobia concerns regarding that site but folks should be able to find it easily if they look.)

In summary…

If you haven’t seen Desert Hearts yet I really can’t recommend it highly enough.

(And yes, that’s Denise Crosby from Star Trek: The Next Generation sitting beside Jeffrey Tambor.)

#desert hearts #queer cinema #donna deitch #helen shaver #patricia charbonneau

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tecontos · 9 months

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Rapidinha com o sogro da minha amiga nesse final de semana (19-08-2023)

By; Viviane

Oi, me chamo Viviane, tenho 24 anos e isso me aconteceu nesse final de semana.

Eu frequento muito o sítio do sogro de uma amiga minha, vamos sempre em grupos de amigos, e passamos todo o final de semana lá. Eu a tempos ja havia reparado no sogro da minha amiga, ele é viúvo, tem uns 52 anos, com ares de homem rústico, mas corpo sarado, barba por fazer, e isso sempre me atraiu nele, mas como já frequentava o sítio há anos, nunca imaginei que um homem daquele viria maldade em mim, e no auge dos meus 24 aninhos, ainda vestia alguns pudores.

Nesse final de semana fomos em em 7 amigos, 3 casais e eu a única solteira, bebemos muito, e quando o fogo começou, cada um foi pro seu quarto e eu fiquei sozinha na área da churrasqueira, coloquei um música e comecei a dançar ali, sozinha, de repente eu escuto a voz dele (Carlos):

– Hey menina o que você está fazendo ai sozinha uma hora dessas ?

– AAAAAAAAAH tio todo mundo foi embora e me abandonou>

– Mas assim tão cedo, vocês ficam até de manhã.

– Tesão tio, TESÃÃÃÃÃO. – e cai na risada.

Ele me olhou sem jeito, e disse que ia me fazer companhia. Sentei de frente a ele, com as pernas abertas (estava usando um vestido micro, e calcinha minúscula, vi que os olhos dele fitaram meus seios, senti desejo e meu corpo respondeu ficando quente, pedi para esperar que eu ia iria rapidinho até o banheiro. Fui e tirei a calcinha e voltei, sentei bem aberta porque queria que ele visse minha buceta e não demorou muito pro nosso papo ir pra putaria.

– Ai tio esses meninos novos não sabem fuder, me perdoe o linguajar.

– Não se preocupe minha linda, pode falar como quiser.

– Tio, o senhor me acha gostosa? – perguntei do nada, pq queria pegar ele de surpresa.

– Você é uma menina, mas é uma mulher também, te acho muito linda.

-NÃÃÃÃÃO tio, tô falando se o senhor me desejaria.

– Menina você não sabe o que tá falando.

– Eu te acho gostoso tio. – Cheguei mais perto, peguei a mão dele e coloquei na minha buceta

– Olha tio como estou só de estar aqui pensando em você me fudendo.

- não faça isso Vivi, que eu não vou me aguentar.

– Não se aguente por favor me fode tio, me fode.

Dai então ele não se segurou mais, me jogou em cima da mesa, tirou meu vestido chupando meus seios e enfiando dois dedos na minha buceta:

- “assim que você gosta né minha putinha, tio vai te mostrar como um homem fode de verdade”.

Me colocou de joelhos e fudeu minha boca com aquele pau grosso gostoso;

-“aaaaah que boquinha deliciosa, isso chupa tudo que o tio gosta, aaaaaah menina você é demais, gostosa”

E segurando minha cabeça com força ele continuou fudendo minha boca, me mandou deitar na mesa e abrir as pernas;

- “que buceta linda e gostosa,agora vou fuder ela bem gostoso”

- “isso tio me fode, me fode com vontade”.

Nossa ele me pegou de um jeito e meteu com vontade, primeiro devagar e foi aumentando a velocidade, fudendo minha buceta enquanto segurava meus seios, e não parava de dizer o quanto minha buceta era quente e apertada..

– Tio quer comer meu cuzinho tio?

– Você é uma vadiazinha mesmo hein? Vira seu cuzinho pra eu gozar nele todo

Fiquei de quatro e ele empurrou sem pena no meu cu, eu gemia e rebolava, ele parou e eu continuei o movimento de entra e sai e rebolando naquela pica gostosa;

- “goza pra mim tio, goza no meu cuzinho gostoso goza, eu quero meu cu cheio da sua porra tio.”

Ai então eu escutei ele gemer alto e senti largando toda sua porra dentro de mim.

– Putinha safada, vai me dar toda vez que vinha ok?

E eu como uma safada que sou confirmei que daria toda vez pra ele.

Enviado ao Te Contos por Viviane

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ace-malarky · 1 month

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Weekend WIP Game - Mist World Shorts

Hey y'know what, I'm going to like. make a few separate non-dated versions of this so I can have all the things? I've been working through my files etc so now they're organised better and I can see everything, so!

I'm also numbering out the scenes that are part written! so if you wanna chuck that into the mix. That is also good.

The WIPS

Alepir Holt (In the wake of magic coming back to Leritheyar, people finding out they are mages and werecreatures and coming together. Characters; Kaithr, Kestrel, Fin, Kane (and oh god so many more but these ones feature in the unfinished scenes)). Scenes; 3

Introduce Yourself (intro pieces for side characters in @dorksndisasters. Characters: Aster, Bituin, Citlali, Jiemba, Najm, Seren, Setareh). Scenes; 7

Mercenary Mages (a group of feral mages doing what they do best (annoy each other and become a really tight knit group). Characters; Llinos, Kaua, Jasper, Tamhas, Tadhg, Spence, Kitty). Scenes; 15

Superhero Twins (a group of uni-and-older friends with various magics that bounce around the city looking for the Crimes that brought them all together. Characters; Roxy, Clara, Cai, Oscar, Onni, Kite, Vivian, Seth, Lucy, Mint (technically a set of novels but I haven't written enough for it to merit being there rather than fun character shorts)). Scenes; 3

The Fair (a group of Welsh-inspired Fair Folk and their adopted/stolen children caught in the thros of prophecy. Characters: Brandi, Kamala, Scarlet, Gwen, Bran). Scenes; 1

The Guardians (a group of people from across the worlds all semi-dedicated to making the worlds a better place. Characters: Linus, Gen, Asin, Skilkran, Basil, Rhiannon, Razar, Akeri, Taerne). Scenes; 5

The Games

Three by Threes: For each filename you receive in your ask box, reply to the ask with 3+ NEW sentences on that WIP.

Lore Corner: Answer questions about your WIP. It can be anything from headcanons to backstory that you have for your WIP that don’t even make it into the fic. Askers - get creative with your questions!

#weekend wip game #this is in the wake of porting everything into obsidian #I went ''oh wow there's a fair few unfinished scenes here huh''#and now I guess we're doing something about that #once they're done maybe I shall look at the ones that need edited but also. doubt.#anyway posting this now bc it's the start of my weekend? I guess?#technically yesterday but we're just having an extended run through to like. Monday.#(I say as I bolt out of the city for the day lmao but I'll be back)

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