"We go from store to store, trying to things on and inspecting them. I give my opinions on dresses and shoes, blouses and lipstick colors. Sometimes I say things that make the other women look at me, agape, as though my mouth has been possessed by that flighty queen from Queer Eye even while the rest of my body still looks like any other big dumb boy's. I say that I like a skirt but I wish it were bias-cut instead of A-line, or that I am not fond of the fashion for surplice tops, or that the post-WWII idiom in shoes this season is amusing but rarely looks good on actual feet, or that I like the look of a bolero jacket. I know the names of colors, heliotrope and coral and Nile blue, and I can say without hesitation whether a lipstick might look better matte with a bit of powder.
These other women look at me with wonder, their boyfriends and husbands having made a fetish out of refusing to learn such words under any circumstances, as though merely pronouncing the word "periwinkle" or "princess seam" could easily turn a strong man gay as a box of birds. They say to her, "That's your husband?" in voices that loiter between admiring and disgusted, as though they know that there's no force on earth that could make their men or boys take such interest in their clothing and they think they might really prefer that to the spectacle of me, filling an armchair, legs crossed ankle over knee, looking just right until I say "tea length."
The point is that she wants other girls to see what it looks like to have a boy so cracy in love with you, as I am, that he will spend an afternoon talking about capri pants to have a boy so delighted by you that he never calls you by your name, but addresses you always as "beautiful girl," or "my love" or occasionally and with great fondness, "boss." To have a boy who will happily fetch your next-size-down and carry your bags and charm the salesclerks at the register without flirting overmuch and just generally try to make himself as useful as possible, all for the dizzy and undying pleasure of making you happy. And even though I am not a boy, I look like one, and so I can be complicit with her in this kind of wonderful afternoon, part indulgence of her great beauty and style, part guerilla feminist activism.
Later, when we walk through the mall or down the sidewalk, me laden with packages that are clearly hers, I watch the eyes of the people we pass: the women who look at me with a certain longing, wishing they had their own boys to carry the bags. The men who look at her with an unmistakable hunger, wishing that they had the honor of schlepping for a girl like her, and then look at me with a certain edge of disbelief, not quite clear about why I get to squire this marvelous example of femininity around when they are clearly wealthier, more handsome, better hung. I have learned to meet all of these gazes with a calm kind of sweetness. There's no point in defensiveness or sheepishness or challenge. I'm the one holding her bags."
"Being a Shopping Switch” Butch is a Noun essays by S. Bear Bergman (2006)
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König x Secretary!Reader (fem)
MDNI 🔞
Quick note: 💕 THANK YOU 💕 to everyone for the love and support on my stories! I’m happy people are enjoying them💗
For more: Master list
Part 2 here
>CW: fem/afab reader, oral, anilingus, p in v
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Imagine coming in to work for König as his secretary after he reluctantly agrees to let the captain hire help for him. Walking into his office the first day to see the massive man with piercing pale blue eyes. A sniper hood with bleached tear looking stains covering his face. He just looks at you. Not being able to see his facial expression because of the mask so you just stand there frozen. So frozen with fear looking into his eyes that you failed to notice the massive hard on he has growing in his pants.
Your first few weeks there he didn’t talk much to you. Handing you files and asking for little earns to be ran for him, like coffee or lunch pick up. Slowly he started to talk more, “Danke, bitte, nien, ja.” His eyes always boring into yours as if he was looking into your soul. It was unsettling, but the pay was great and he has never actually been rude to you so you put up with it.
You had gotten into the routine and started to enjoy the job. König was an easy man to work for as long as you did things as expected and he never over worked you. As a plus he turned out to be sweeter than expected. Coming into work on your birthday to see a simple cupcake with frosting in your favorite color on your desk and a card stuffed with cash. König never actually says “Happy Birthday”, but this is just how he expresses he cares.
“Thank you, König.”
He gives a simple nod and goes back to typing up a report.
Six months in he asks you to stay after, he has to talk to you. You begin to worry, anxiety spikes as you realize you might be getting fired. Trying to think about the mistakes you might have made, you sit a chair across from his desk. His eyes look away from the computer to meet yours.
Before you know it, you’re naked, bent over his desk. His mask pulled back over his head as his face is smothered between your ass cheeks as his tongue laps at your tight asshole. One of his hands has two of his thick fingers pumping in and out of your wet pussy, the feeling of your tight gummy walls wrapping around his fingers making him want in now. His other hand stroking his cock, using his own precum as lube.
“Was willst du?” His eyes travel to his fingers in your pussy before pulling them out and shoving his tongue in your slightly stretched hole.
“I want your cock,” your voice trembles with pleasure.
König lets a pleasured sigh hearing your words before pulling away from your sweet pussy. Finally, he lines up his fat cock with your entrance.
An animalistic groan escapes his lips as he pushes the tip in. König places his hands on your ass cheeks to spread them apart; his eyes watching as your pussy struggles to stretch, swallowing his cock inch my inch. Eyes fluttering to the back of his head. He feels like he just found heaven in your tight grip.
He was already falling in love; this moment just sealed the deal. A week later you came into work to find a key on your desk attached to a “K” keychain.
Part2
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Lesson 1: "White Man Painted Black"?
Okay, I recognize that this is a strong foot to step off on! But! If you learn nothing else from this series, if you decide for whatever reason to forsake me: this is the ONE perspective I'd like you to take away!
You may have heard this quote before, when Black fans deride a character design as 'a white man with the brown bucket tool'. On its face, it means exactly what was said. But specifically, what it means is that we recognize that whomever designed the character drew the way they normally draw for a 'default' character in their mind- default usually meaning White/Eurocentric features- and they added a shade of brown within the line art to make that character now 'Black'.
Now if you're feeling defensive, wait just a moment! This discomfort is not inherently a bad thing!
I'm going to use both a 'real world' example first, to show you what your Black fans and peers are seeing, and perhaps you will also understand our discomfort!
(if anyone was curious, my folder for this lesson is titled 'brad' lmao and you'll see why)
(I'll have y'all know that I actually worked very hard to make Blackface Brad look mildly presentable lmao I'm sorry, I'm wheezing, I can hardly breathe looking at him 🤣)
You see how, despite knowing where this was going, and using one of the darkest shades of brown in my Skin Tones arsenal, you still know that that's Brad Pitt? That nothing about his hair texture, his lips, his nose, or really anything other than the palette change... changed? And you can still see that?
It's incredibly hurtful to be told that that's supposed to be you. You know it's not, you know why it's not, but rather than hearing how it makes you feel unseen and what they could do to be better (since they wanted to draw a Black character!), the artist lashes out at you.
And as an artist, you might have worked VERY HARD to do this! That might be a real handsome guy you drew!! But... is he really Black? Did you walk into it with the intention, that you were drawing a Black Character, or did you draw a character that just happened to be Black? It seems like a silly thing, but it matters!
Okay. I just finished laughing over Brad. Now let's get into some more perspective changes:
Now, imagine you drew a character. You want to make her Black, so you change the hair and skin colors. All right! You have your Black character... right?
Changed ONE feature about her? (You should obviously change more than one feature, but let's just go with the simplified example.)
What if, instead of just changing her palette, we changed her:
Hair?
There isn't nearly enough time in the world, let alone in this little scribble and blurb, for me to describe the IMPORTANCE of Black hair in Black character design. There are so many ways to do curls, afros, braids, twists, locs, SO MANY HAIRSTYLES!! Get used to searching in the 3C-4C hair textures!!!! I plan on doing an entire lesson or two on hair alone, but suffice it to say, Hair Texture is thee BIGGEST giveaway that you 'painted a white person Black'- from cartoon styles to realistic! It reveals itself in your writing as well- just based on how your character takes care of their hair, how your describe the texture, how other people might perceive it... it lets me know just how much research was done. Because we can have straight hair! But again, that's a conversation for a whole 'nother lesson so- come back later 👀?
Lips?
I love our lips, I really do. There's a long history of shaming Black women in particular for the way our lips look. So when I see them done in all their glory, it makes me very happy. Two-toned lips vary in shade and intensity, so make sure you're using references if you want to be 'realistic', but it doesn't have to be that hard. Even a little subtle shift like this in the design/story description lets me know that a creator was thinking about me.
Nose?
One thing I've noticed ever since I starting drawing is that... people in a lot of mangas/manhwas barely have noses! I admit, out of all the features on the face, the nose isn't the most important. I think they should be, especially when you want to emphasize that your characters look different! People have different types of noses! I especially want to gear this towards those with a goal of drawing realistic portraits and the like- there, the nose is ANOTHER dead giveaway. There are Black people with aquiline and straight noses- we aren't a monolith- but is that why you drew it? Consider why you went for that nose specifically. That's part of the intent, in all this!
Now, you might be looking at me and going "Ice... this is just character design". To which my answer is: Yes! It is! It feels so basic, and yet if you ask your Black friends/peers how often they've come across this feeling of not being properly drawn/written, from fanart to professionally produced works, it's unfortunately common despite how simple of a concept it is.
I hope that you can walk away from my first lil lesson with new eyes. Remember, it's the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!
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You know what I want to see, I want to see more of Steve, Eddie, and Robin being 1980s small town kids from Indiana, by which I mean;
Robin is The Source of Gay Knowledge purely because her parents host Hippie Christmas and she managed to sneak away to find a neat bookstore in Indiana once.
Her knowledge is not in depth. It's patchy, woven together through rumors, stories she heard or things she picked up from her parents' old pictures. She's got a handful of zines, one book, and some movies she managed to order for Family Video behind Keith's back.
She acts like she's Queen of the Queers because in Hawkins she pretty much is.
(Max and El ask her what a lavender marriage is once, something they overheard snooping around.
Robin confidentially answers that it's code for when one woman dresses up as a man, fooling officials into wedding two woman.
She does not live this down two years later when they find out what it actually means.)
Eddie doesn't spend every weekend in Indianapolis.
Gas is expensive, his busiest days of his "job" is Friday and Saturday, and he has no fucking clue what the hanky code is.
He's wearing that bandana because Metallica front singer James Hetfield has one on all their tour posters.
Eddie does make it down to a gay bar though, by accident. Rick needed some back up for a shady deal. Promised Eddie a boatload of free drugs to sell if he agreed to just stand there and look mean.
He was warned the bar they were meeting in was 'weird' and to not 'freak out' --which Eddie thought was hilarious given his nickname and general appearance, but whatever.
He doesn't understand when they get there, because it's just a bunch of hot men with hanky's in their back pockets everywhere.
Then he sees two women kissing and it clicks.
He can't out himself in front of Rick, but one of the bartenders playfully dresses him down for his own hanky, letting him know all about the code and teasing him through his embarrassment.
He's got an offer to come back and learn what color and which pocket his hanky should actually be in, a prospect Eddie was salivating at until Chrissy Cunningham up and died on his ceiling.
(He still wore the hanky, because the feeling of that bartender tugging it out and stuffing it back in might be the closest thing he's ever had to sex and he absolutely wants a repeat.
He's young and horny, sue him.)
Steve Harrington may not be academically smart but he's not dumb.
He figured out a while back that the basketball team as a unit probably crossed the queer line more than once--or at least it did before Hargrove came in.
( Brad Handly for example, went around slamming kids into lockers and screaming slurs like a fucking movie villain one Monday because the varsity team got dead drunk at Laura's party on Sunday and hey, look, there weren't that many girls there, okay?
They all had fucking hands and mouths. Everybody but Tommy was single and hot to trot. Nothing gay about it.
Its not even like they were kissing or treating each other like chicks. It was just Brad's first time and they got to tease him later for overthinking it.
Dude graduated soon enough after and given Steve was on the team as a sophomore, he hadn't thought about the guy and why he might be freaking out so bad in years.)
Robin's entire panic attack at Starcourt, and a few more after had Steve replaying that whole incident. Reframed it a bit, and, yeah.
In retrospect that had been extremely gay, actually.
It sat with him a lot easier than he'd thought it would. Partially because of Robin, but mostly because that's just who he was.
Stranger things had happened to Steve and this one didn't want to kill, maim or otherwise eat him, so it got filed under 'interesting facts he should never tell his parents if he wanted to keep his trust fund' and then he went about his day.
(Or he tried too, anyways.
It caught up to him when Eddie and Robin somehow figured out the other was queer and dragged him along to some bar Eddie had a standing invitation at, with demands for Steve to do what he did best.
Babysit.
Their magical trip was utterly destroyed when Brad Handly happened to be the very same bartender who had given Eddie the invite.
Considering Brad's immediate bark of laughter followed by a hug and introducing himself as "Steve's gay awakening", Steve ended up having to speedrun through Eddie and Robin both having a crisis for him.
It didn't help that Steve had politely, and laughingly, corrected Brad with a casual;
"Pretty sure that was Tommy man, but if it helps I think that tongue of yours gave Matt Burdon a crisis."
--which ended up with him answering a lot more gay sex questions with Brad than he cared too.
At least he, through Brad, was able to help Robin connect to some local lesbians and--after a second crisis from Eddie regarding how Steve managed to have more sex than "the resident town freak and guy who actually knew he was gay, Steve!"-- even helped Eddie out by catching the metalheads tongue with his mouth later that evening.
The last one landed him a boyfriend, trust fund be damned.)
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